"It's no use," he said hopelessly. "No use. . . . Somehow I know it. . . . Oh, my G.o.d! If I could only have it over again--just a day. . . ." The anguish in his voice would have wrung a harder heart than Sangster's. For a moment there was unbroken silence in the room.

Then Jimmy struggled to his feet.

"I must go after her. She won't come back, I know. But at least I can try. . . . It may not be too late---- Kettering--d.a.m.n him! . . ." He broke off. He stood for a moment swaying to and fro.

Sangster caught his arm.

"You're not fit to go. Let me. . . . I'll do all I can. . . I give you my word of honour that I'll move heaven and earth to find her. And we may be mistaken. We may. . . ." He broke off. Someone had knocked softly on the door. For a moment neither of them answered, then the handle was softly turned, and Christine stood there on the threshold. . . .

Sangster caught his breath hard in his throat. He looked at her, and he had to hold himself back with an iron hand to keep from rushing to her, from falling at her feet in abas.e.m.e.nt for the very real doubt and dread that he had cherished against her.

She looked so young--such a child, and her brown eyes were so sweet and shy as she looked at Jimmy--never at him. He realised it with a little stabbing pain that it was not once at him that she looked, but past him, to where Jimmy stood like a man turned to stone.

Then: "Christine," said Jimmy Challoner with a great cry.

He put out his hand and touched her, almost as if he doubted that she was real. His breath was coming fast; he was ashen pale.

"Christine," he said again in a whisper.

Sangster moved past him. He did not look at Christine any more. He walked to the door and opened it. He hesitated a moment, wondering if either of them would see him going, be conscious of his presence. But he might not have been there for all they knew. He went out slowly and shut the door behind him.

It was the shutting of the door that broke the spell, that roused Jimmy from the lethargy into which he had fallen. He tried to laugh.

"I'm sorry. I--I didn't expect you." The words sounded foolish to himself. He tried to cover them. "Won't you sit down? I'm--I'm glad. . . ." A wave of crimson surged to his face. "Oh, my G.o.d! I am glad to see you," he said hoa.r.s.ely.

He groped backwards for his chair and fell into it.

A most humiliating weakness came over him. He hid his face in his hands.

Christine stood looking at him with troubled eyes; then she put out her hand and touched him timidly:

"Jimmy!"

He caught her hand and carried it to his lips. He kissed it again and again--the little fingers, the soft palm, the slender wrist.

"I thought I should never see you again. I couldn't have borne it. . . . Christine--oh my dear, forgive me, forgive me. I'm so wretched, so utterly, utterly miserable. . . ."

The appeal was so boyish--so like the old selfish Jimmy whom Christine had loved and spoilt in the days when they were both children. It almost seemed as if the years were rolled away again and they were down at Upton House, making up a childish quarrel--Jimmy asking for pardon, she only too anxious to kiss and be friends.

Tears swam into her eyes and her lips trembled; but she did not move.

"I want to tell you something," she said slowly.

He looked up, his eyes full of a great dread.

"Not that you're going away--I can't bear it. You'll drive me mad--Christine--little Christine." He was on his knees beside her now, his arms round her waist, his face buried in the soft folds of her dress. "Forgive me, Christine--forgive me. I love you so, and I've been punished enough. I thought you'd gone away with that devil--that brute Kettering. I've been half mad!" He flung back his head and looked at her. She was very flushed. Her eyes could not meet his.

"That's--that's just what I want to tell you," she said in a whisper.

Jimmy's arms fell from about her. He rose to his feet slowly; he tried to speak, but no words would come. Then, quite suddenly, he broke down into sobbing.

He was very much of a boy still, was Jimmy Challoner. Perhaps he would never grow up into a man as Kettering and Sangster understood the word; but his very boyishness was what Christine had first loved in him.

Perhaps he could have chosen no surer or swifter way to her forgiveness than this. . . .

In a moment her arms were round his neck. She tried to draw his head down to her shoulder. Her sweet face was all concern and motherly tenderness as she kissed him and kissed him.

"Don't, Jimmy--don't! Oh, I do love you--I do love you."

She began to cry too, and they kissed and clung together like children who have quarrelled and are sorry.

Jimmy drew her into his arms, and they sat clasping one another in the big arm-chair. It was a bit of a squeeze, but neither of them minded.

His arms were round her now, her head on his shoulder. He kissed her every minute. He said that he had all the byegone years of both their lives to make up for. He asked her a hundred times if she really loved him; if she had forgiven him; and if she loved him as much as she had done a month ago--two months ago; if she loved him as much as when they were children; and if she would love him all his life and hers.

"All my life and yours," she told him with trembling lips.

He had kissed the colour back to her cheeks by this time. She looked more like the girl he had seen that fateful night in the stalls at the theatre. He kissed her eyes because he said they were so beautiful.

He kissed her hair.

Presently she drew a little away from him.

"But I want to talk to you," she said. She would not look at him. She sat nervously twisting his watch-chain.

"Yes," said Jimmy. He lifted her hand and held it against his lips all the time she spoke.

"It's about--about Mr. Kettering," she said in a whisper.

Jimmy swore--a sign that he was feeling much better.

"I don't want to hear his confounded name."

"Oh, but you must--Jimmy. I--I--he----"

"He's been making love to you----"

No answer. Jimmy took her face in his hands, searching its flushed sweetness with jealous eyes.

"Has he?" he demanded savagely.

"N-no . . . but . . . oh, Jimmy, don't look like that. He only came up this morning because--because Gladys is ill. He thought I ought to know and--and--I thought I would go down and see her. But in the train----" she faltered.

"Yes . . ." said Jimmy from between his teeth.

Christine raised her brown eyes.

"He said--he said----" Suddenly she fell forward, hiding her face against his coat. "Oh, it doesn't matter, dear; it doesn't matter, because it was then that I knew it was only you I wanted--only you I loved. I knew that I couldn't bear any other man to say that he loved me--that it was you--only you."

"Oh, my sweet!" said Jimmy huskily. He turned her face and kissed her lips. "I don't deserve it; but--oh, Christine, do believe that there's never been anyone like you in my life; that I've never cared for anyone as I do for you--all that--that other----"

"I know--I know," she was thinking remorsefully of the days when Kettering had seemed to come before Jimmy in her heart; of the days when she had been unhappy because he stayed away. And now there was a deep thankfulness in her heart that he himself had brought things to a climax. She had been so pleased to see him when he called at the hotel that morning. She had never dreamed that sheer longing had driven him to London to see her, or that he had made Gladys the excuse. She had readily agreed to a run down to Upton House to see Gladys. She had started off with him quite happily and unsuspectingly. And then--even now it sent a little shiver of dread through her to think of the way he had spoken--the way he had pleaded with her--looked at her.