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haps, leaving her not unscathed. ‘Yes; look deep into your complicity,’ she told herself, while she walked so calmly, held by Celia, and seemed to listen to her; for was it not complicity to understand, even though she had quenched the thread of flame, why Hester had loved him desperately and loved him, perhaps, as desperately now?—to understand, even, why she loved him more than Clive?

There was no flame in Clive, was that it? He was light, not fire; he illumined, he did not burn; and did she not understand the deep craving to perish, if need be, in the flame? She felt herself tremble inwardly as her thought, so coldly it seemed, gazed at Captain Ingpen’s ambiguous homage. Yes; he was an unscrupulous man, for he had come seeking the old passion and had dared to pause and offer homage on his way.

‘Did Clive tell you that he took me for a drive on Saturday?’ Celia said. ‘Robin came too and sat on my lap and we had a dear talk. It made me feel,’ Celia smiled round at her with unclouded candour, ‘that everything might come back again. I had tea with him and Hester afterwards and she was so sweet to me, in her funny, terse way. I know that Clive hopes very much we are to be friends.’

It would satisfy Celia to be illumined. She