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Rh years? She was—let’s see—twenty-six now. He wondered if she had changed, if he would know her again, if she would be happy. Why had she waited eight years, since he had said that he would never return never? What had she thought he would do? Then another idea sobered him a moment. If she were going to be married he could never appear in England again as Clifford Yelverton, He could never claim his title even. The idea amused him at first, then gradually it took possession of him and assumed a serious aspect. He had wanted to disappear, now life, circumstances, events, insisted on his disappearing. If he did his duty, he could never be seen again. By his own act, he had made himself an outcast, a pariah, for ever. The moral, the religious point of view, he had not given a thought to yet. He would presently, perhaps, but only from her point of view, or that of the world. He had no established moral code, no theories, no religion, yet he was neither immoral, ‘nor a disbeliever. Forms of worship, creeds—he had regarded them always half with interest, half with amused tolerance. They were the pivot to which each nation tied itself in a different knot, for fear it should be blown away. His Rh