"Sherbrand is well? He returned from France in safety?"
"He was quite in the pink when he arrived—and ditto when he left. Not that he had much time. A wireless came, ordering him to replace an aviator of the Royal Flying Corps, killed on observation-duty—or whatever it is they call it—with our fellows on the new Front. Rough on him, but he took it smiling. No, thanks! I'm not keen on dinner.... You won't mind if I go to my room?"
"One moment. Have you had food to-day?" he asked her.
"I forget.... Yes, of course! There was luncheon at one o'clock. The people at the Air Station did us tremendously well." Her mouth twisted. "I think it better to tell you and Lynette that Alan Sherbrand and I have said ta-ta!" She tried to smile. "I'm back on your hands like a bad penny!" Her eyes seemed all black between their narrowed lids.
They were quite alone, no servant within hearing, and the dining-room door was shut. Came the Doctor's low-toned question:
"Has any—third person made mischief between you two?"
"No, nobody has blabbed to him about anything. But—he's wise enough now, as regards this child. Particularly wide-O!" The black, glittering eyes looked dry and hard as enamel. Her teeth again showed in that mirthless grin. "I don't suppose he has the ghost of an illusion left.... Women—most women would say I was a howling fool to make a clean breast of it. I never meant to—I can swear!—when first we got engaged. I used to call his goodness stodgy. I think I despised him for it in certain moods of mine. You've never realised the kind of beast I can be. But more and more, I got to respect him! And suddenly—I knew that if I married him under false colours—letting him believe me to be what I amn't—even though he never found me out—I'd—never have been able to shake hands with myself again!"
She moved to the stairs, the sleeve of her coat brushing the Doctor's great shoulder.
"Don't you suppose God had it all his own way," she said in that odd, strangled voice that wasn't like Patrine's. "There were minutes when the World, and the Flesh, and the Devil were jolly well to the fore. Alan would marry me to-morrow if I used the power I could use. But I won't! I won't! It'd not be playing the decent, straight game. So I let him call me heartless, and piffle like that, and then the game seemed hardly worth playing. I'd have thrown up my cards—only the Recall came. And we said good-bye, and I saw him fly away like a great white bird, over the water. And I'm so strong—so horribly strong—that I stood it and didn't die.... Even if Alan's killed at the Front I shan't die.... Ah-h! ... You mustn't touch me!" Her hands plucked themselves violently from Saxham's that would have enfolded them. "I could stand anything better than pity. Being pitied would kill me—though I'm so awfully strong!"
"Then trust us not to pity you—only to love you. That I look upon you as a daughter is no secret to you, I think?"