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A feverish impulse towards self-sacrifice sprang up within him. He would bury the incident of that afternoon as a dead thing–nay, more, for Mrs. Branscome’s sake he would leave England and return to his retreat among the mountains. If she had suffered, why should he claim an exemption? The idea had just sufficient strength to impel him to catch the night-mail from Charing Cross. That it was already weakening was evidenced by a half-feeling of regret that he had not missed the train.

The regret swelled during his journey to the coast. The scene he had just come through became, from much pondering on it, almost unreal, and, with the blurring of the impression it had caused, there rose a doubt as to the accuracy of his vision of Mrs. Branscome’s distress, which he had conjured out of it. His chivalry, in a word, had grown too quickly to take firm root. It was an exotic planted in soil not yet fully prepared. David began to think himself a fool, and at last, as the train neared Dover, a question which had been vaguely throbbing in his brain suddenly took shape. Why had she not sent for him? True, the locket was lost, but she might have written. The formulation of the question shattered almost all the work of the last few hours. He cursed his recent thoughts as a child’s fairy dreams. Why should he leave England after all? If he was to sacrifice himself it should be for some one who cared sufficiently for him to justify the act.

There might, of course, have been some hidden obstacle in the way, which Mrs. Branscome could not surmount. The revelation of Marston’s unimagined story warned him of the possibility of that. But the chances were against it. Anyway, he quibbled to himself, he had a clear right to pursue the matter until he unearthed the truth. Acting upon this decision, David returned to town, though not without a lurking sense of shame.

A few evenings after, he sought out Mrs. Branscome at a dance. The blood rushed to her face when she caught his figure, and as quickly ebbed away.

“So you have not gone, after all?” There was something pitiful in her tone of reproach.

“No. What made you think I had?”

“Mr. Marston told me!”

“Did he tell you why?”

“I guessed that, and I thanked you in my heart.”

David was disconcerted; the woman he saw corresponded so ill with what he was schooling himself to believe her. He sought to conceal his confusion, as she had once done, and played a part. Like her, he overplayed it.

“Well! I came to see London life, you know. It makes a pretty comedy.”

“Comedies end in tears at times.”

“Even then common politeness makes us sit them out. Can you spare me a dance?”

Mrs. Branscome pleaded fatigue, and barely suppressed a sigh of relief as she noted her husband’s approach. David followed her glance, and bent over her, speaking hurriedly:–

“You said you knew why I went away; I want to tell you why I came back.”

“No! no!” she exclaimed. “It could be of no use–of no help to either of us.”

“I came back,” he went on, ignoring her interruption, “merely to ask you one question. Will you hear it and answer it? I can wait,” he added, as she kept silence.

“Then, to-morrow, as soon as possible,” Mrs. Branscome replied, beaten by his persistency. “Come at seven; we dine at eight, so I can give you half-an-hour. But you are ungenerous.”

That night began what may be termed the crisis of Hilton’s education. This was the second time he had caught Mrs. Branscome unawares. On the first occasion–that of his unexpected arrival in England–he did not possess the experience to measure accurately looks and movements, or to comprehend them as the connotation of words. It is doubtful, besides, whether, had he owned the skill, he would have had the power to exercise it, so engrossed was he in his own distress. By the process, however, of continually repressing the visible signs of his own emotions, he had now learnt to appreciate them in others. And in Mrs. Branscome’s sudden change of colour, in little convulsive movements of her hands, and in a certain droop of eyelids veiling eyes which met the gaze frankly as a rule, he read this evening sure proofs of the constancy of her heart. This fresh knowledge affected him in two ways. On the one hand it gave breath to the selfish passion which now dominated his ideas. At the same time, however it assured him that when he asked his question: “Why did you not send for me?” an unassailable answer would be forthcoming; and, moreover, by convincing him of this, it destroyed the sole excuse he had pleaded to himself for claiming the right to ask it. In self-defence Hilton had recourse to his old outcry against the marriage laws and, finding this barren, came in the end to frankly devising schemes for their circumvention. Such inward personal conflicts were, of necessity, strange to a man dry-nursed on abstractions, and, after a night of tension, they tossed him up on the shores of the morning broken in mind and irresolute for good or ill.