Paul exulted as an angler exults when he feels his first salmon tug at the line; but his tone was casual and composed. "Come early," he said. "Then we shall pretty well have the place to ourselves. Eleven? Half-past?"

"Somewhere between the two."

"Good."

And Paul Wyndham—the devout lover, who had trampled passion underfoot to some purpose—walked back to Piccadilly like a man reprieved. Honor was secure. Remained the capture of Theo—a more difficult feat; but, in his present mood, he refused to contemplate the possibility of failure.

* * * * *

A morning of unclouded brilliance found Desmond frankly bored with tactics and topography; the more so, perhaps, because Paul with simple craft took his industry for granted.

Soon after eleven, he put aside the inevitable pipe and newspaper and took up his hat. "Well, Theo," said he, "you won't be needing me till after lunch I suppose?—I'm off."

"Where to, old man?" Desmond yawned extensively as he spoke, and pushed aside his little pile of red books with a promising gesture of distaste. "What's your dissipated programme?"

"An hour in the Diploma Gallery, and a stroll in the Park," Paul replied with admirable unconcern. "D'you feel like coming?"

"I feel like chucking all these into the waste-paper basket! When England takes it into her capricious head to do this sort of thing in May, how the devil can a human man keep his nose to the grindstone? Come on!"

Paul's heart beat fast as they stepped into the street; faster still as he glanced at Theo striding briskly beside him, head in air all unconscious that he was faring toward a tryst far more in tune with the season and the new life astir in his blood than his late abnormal zeal in pursuit of promotion.

To Paul it seemed that the heavens themselves were in league with him. Overhead, scattered ranks of chimneypots were bitten out of a sky scarcely less blue and ardent than Italy's own. In every open space young leaves flashed, golden-green, on soot-blackened branches of chestnut, plane, and lime. And there were flowers everywhere—in squares and window-boxes and parks; in florists' and milliners' windows; in the baskets of flower-sellers and in women's hats. The paper-boy—blackbird of the London streets—whistled a livelier stave. Girls hurried past smiling at nothing in particular. They were glad to be alive—that was all.

And Theo?

He too was glad to be alive, to be free, at last, from the conquering shadow of memory and self-reproach. If penance were required of him, surely that black year must suffice. Now the living claimed him; and that claim could no longer be ignored. With a heart too full for speech he walked beside his friend; and halting at last, on the steps of Burlington House, he bared his head to the sunlight and drew a deep breath of content.

"I vote we don't waste much of this divine morning on pictures, Paul," he said suddenly. "Why bother about them at all?"

Wyndham started visibly; but in less than a minute he was master of himself and the situation.

"Well, as we're here, we may as well look in," he answered casually; and without waiting further objection, turned to enter the building.

Desmond, following, laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Anything to please you, old man," said he smiling.

"God knows you've danced attendance on my whims long enough!"

No sign of Honor in the cloistered coolness of the first room; only a small group of people in earnest talk before one of the pictures, and an artist, with stool and easel, making a conscientious copy of another.

Desmond made a cursory tour of the walls and passed on into the second room. Paul, increasingly anxious every moment, lagged behind and consulted his watch. It was twenty-five minutes past eleven. Would she never come?

The second room was empty, and there Desmond's aimless wandering had been checked by a battle picture; a vigorous and tragic presentment of Sir John Moore's retreat from Corunna.

"Here you are, Paul. Here's something worth looking at," said he as Wyndham joined him; and, soldier-like, they soon fell to discussing the event rather than the picture. Desmond—his head full of tactics and military history—held forth fluently quite in his old vein; while Paul—who heard scarce one word in six—nodded sagely at appropriate intervals.

Hope died hard in him. A clock outside, chiming the half-hour, rang its knell with derisive strokes that seemed to beat upon his heart. It was just his luck. She would never turn up. A hundred contingencies might arise to prevent her—a street accident, a headache, bad news of her father——

Sudden silence from Theo cut short the dismal list; and one glance at him told Paul that his hour was come indeed. For Desmond stood rigid, a dull flush burning through his tan; and his eyes looked over Paul's shoulder towards the entrance into Room Number One.

"My God!" he muttered hoarsely, "Here's Honor!"

Without a word Paul turned on his heel and saw how she, too, stood spellbound, there by the doorway, her cheeks aflame, her eyes more eloquent than she knew. Taken completely unawares, each had surprised the other's secret, even as Paul had foreseen. In that lightning flash of mutual recognition, the end he had wrought for, and agonised for, was achieved. Obviously they had no further need of his services—and, unnoticed by either, he passed quietly out of the room.

For one measureless minute they remained confronting each other; scarcely daring to breathe lest they break the spell of that passionate unspoken avowal. Then Honor came forward slowly, like one walking in her sleep—and the spell was gone. In two strides Desmond had reached her and grasped her outstretched hand.

No attempt at conventional futilities marred their supreme moment. Words seemed an impertinence in view of the overwhelming fact that he stood before her thus—his face transfigured and illumined by love unutterable, by a discovery scarcely realised even now.

There was so much to tell, and again, so little after all, that there seemed no need to tell it. Yet Honor could not choose but long for the sound of his voice; and to that end she tried very gently to withdraw her hand.

Desmond—suddenly aware that they were alone—tightened his grasp. "No—no," he protested under his breath, "unless—you wish it. Do you—Honor?"

"I don't wish it," she answered very low, and her eyes, resting on his, had a subdued radiance as of sunlight seen through mist.

Haloed in that radiance Desmond beheld the "infernal chap" he had been cursing for weeks; realised instantaneously all that the recognition implied; and, capturing both her hands, crushed them between his own.

"Honor—my splendid Honor!"

He still spoke under his breath; and still his eyes held hers in a gaze so compelling that it seemed as though he were drawing her very soul into his own with a force that she had neither will nor power to resist.

In that long look she knew that, for all her passionate intensity of heart and spirit, this man, whom she had won, surpassed her in both; that in all things he rose above her—and would always rise. And because she was very woman at the core, such knowledge gladdened her beyond telling; crowned her devotion as wedded love is rarely crowned in a world honeycombed with half-heartedness in purpose and faith and love.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.

THE END