"You needn't be afraid of that. A man in his position is bound to take action. If he doesn't----"
"If he doesn't," broke in Julia, "we must fight him. We three." She rose from the creaky chair; and Aliette, seeing the determination, the courage in those old eyes, felt suddenly ashamed of her own weakness. "Meanwhile, I think I'll go to bed. Your maid promised to wait up for me."
Kissing "that woman" good night, Ronnie's mother whispered: "Don't try to overpersuade him. If he feels it is right--he must be allowed to go."
6
Very early next morning, before dawn lightened to palest rose behind the clematis blossoms, the woman who had left her husband, waking with her lover's arms about her, prayed voicelessly to that God whose priests would henceforth bar her from His communion, that Ronnie's love might endure to the end.
For now, Aliette was afraid.
CHAPTER XV
1
Two days subsequent to his mother's arrival at Chilworth Cove, Ronald Cavendish set out for London.
Aliette, masking her anxiety, drove him to the station; and for nearly an hour after the slow train left Chilton Junction he visualized nothing except her pale, exquisite face and the wistful smile in her brown eyes. Looking back, it seemed to him that those eyes had been very close to tears. Thinking of her, imagination roused all the tenderness, all the fighting instinct in him.