But Farquharson was not openly exhilarated or depressed. He was too sure of himself to be easily surprised. Last night his pulses had beaten a trifle quicker, of course; conflict braced him. But it was the pride of moving men, not doubt of his ability to move them, which thrilled him. The Albert Hall meeting was a matter of course; a thing he had worked for, and planned. Christmas Day falls on the 25th of December; he was as certain of his success as that the festival would not be altered.

Calvert, entering his room at the luncheon hour, found him cool and collected, absolutely unruffled by events which might legitimately have stirred him.

So busy was he that it was not until comparatively late in the afternoon that he had time to think of Evelyn. Perhaps he took her rather for granted, too. His faith, after all, was based on surer reasons than the average man's trust; he had proved her loyalty and endurance more in a month than most men would in a lifetime. From her alone of his friends there was no morning greeting, but he was not disappointed. Even in small matters it was impossible to mistake her. He was to dine that evening at the Brands'; she would tell him then what she could scarcely say in a letter.

The last few weeks had altered him more than he knew. Between him and Calvert there was now a sympathy and tenderness which had never existed in Taorna. Farquharson had been a machine then, a magnificent machine which could be relied upon to produce the best work—nothing more. Now he was human.

Too human, probably, he thought suddenly, realizing in a flash how his work was tending to the moment when he would reach the Brands'. "Peace after Toyle" was what Evelyn brought, absolute rest of mind and body. A dangerous quality to come in contact with when it belonged to the wife of one's neighbour.

For primitive man may be awakened in even the most hardened diplomatist. And Farquharson was not naturally hard. Love of victory, too, counts—the spirit which makes a man want to carry off the woman he loves in face of danger, and put her before him on his horse and look back laughing with bullets whizzing about them, and a precipice ahead, for sheer love of devilry and adventure and desire to possess the thing he wants.

To Evelyn, counting the hours till dawn, and saddened when dawn came because it brought the parting of the ways, it seemed that life, so broad and beautiful only yesterday, had narrowed again into the old grey road without a turning. All that had made life so sweet lately must go now: the little plans, the little projects to help Farquharson, their daily meetings, ...; all that had brought colour into the monotonous road, had made it fragrant and glowing—how fragrant, how glowing she had never realized till now when she must make up her mind to stand aside for evermore; hardest of all, perhaps, possibly to watch another woman in her place.

For she could no longer cheat herself with half-truths, and talk of vanity and imagination. Last night the very beating of her heart betrayed her. In the strange inconsequence of memory, her mind went back to five years before, when two Glasgow engineers, who were building a temporary bridge at Comrie, talked slightingly in her presence of "little Highland burns," when wise men of the neighbourhood told them that their bridge was built too low, and that they had not allowed for the rising of the floods. For those same little burns took counsel together, biding their time, waiting until a night when all was still, when they suddenly drew the forces of the mountain and swept down the hillside in a mighty torrent, gathering strength as they went, carrying all before them, undismayed, until at last they reached the temporary bridge and tore it from its moorings, to play with it in mid-stream as children play with a broken fragment of wood.

So love, once recognized, sweeps all before it, honour, loyalty, faith, a torrent that nothing can withstand, nothing compel or alter but the will of God....

A little book lay open on her writing-table, a frequent companion. It had comforted her before; she wanted comfort now. She opened it at random, and her eyes fell on these words—