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“Yes, thank you,” Rosamund assured him.

“Splendid! Goodnight then, my dear.” He hesitated and then, almost shyly, went on: “I’m glad that—at last—my roof is giving you shelter, Rosamund.”

He bent to kiss her, gave her shoulder a gentle pat or two and left her.

Rosamund stood looking down at the sheets of paper she held. Then, without unfolding them, she laid them down on a table. After all, what was the good of reading what Aunt Ruth had said? Nothing anyone said or wrote could help, as her father had put it, sort out her problems. It was too late for that.

Three days later John came to the Harley Street flat. Rosamund answered his ring and when she opened the door and saw who it was, she fell back a pace or two.

“I—I asked you not to come here,” she reminded him breathlessly.

“I know you did,” he admitted. “But I felt it was necessary for us to meet. However, if you’re alone, perhaps you’d prefer that I should come back some other time?”

He stood still, waiting for her reply. Rosamund, feeling that his consideration had put her at a disadvantage, gave him a quick, uncertain look.

How serious he seemed to be. How absolutely lacking his expression was of all emotion—as if he was keeping a very tight hold on himself. Well, she would show him that she could match his self-control—

“Since you’re here, you may as well come in,” she said with deliberate indifference, and led the way to the sitting room. “Do sit down,” she added as impersonally as if they had just met for the first time.

But John preferred to stand—not very near to her, but so that he had a full view of her face. For an appreciable time, neither of them spoke. Then John said quietly: “First of all, may we deal with the question of your maiden name since, as you will appreciate, it’s something that must be cleared up as quickly as possible.” And when Rosamund nodded, he went on: “Will you tell me a little more about it all? How you came to be called Hastings when your real name was—what was it, Rosamund? You didn’t tell me that.”

“Dexter,” she told him reluctantly.

“Dexter!” John exclaimed, “do you mean that Dr. Rob—?”

“He’s my father,” Rosamund explained matter-of-factly. “And though I don’t expect
you
to believe it, until this week, I had no idea that was so, any more than he had known, all these years, that he had a daughter.”

“I see.” John made no attempt to rise to the unmistakable taunt at his probable incredulity. “Will you tell me how that came about? Please understand, I’m not just asking out of curiosity, but because I
must
know since I’m as deeply involved in the matter as you are.”

It was true, of course, so as briefly and clearly as possible, Rosamund told him the whole story. John , listened in silence, but when it was finished, he drew a deep breath.

“And you say that your aunt had made a written statement of her share in it all?”

“Yes.”

“Good! That’s likely to be very helpful. I’ll let my solicitor know and he’ll tell us what the next step must be. He will, of course, need to see the statement.”

“I suppose so.”

Silence fell between them. Then, as if it took considerable effort to ask the question, John said:

“Rosamund, have you—or has Dr. Rob—made any enquiries about the legality of our marriage?”

Rosamund nodded and then, her head still bent, stared at the ring which John had put on her finger.

“In that case,” he went on deliberately, “you know that beyond doubt—we are husband and wife?”

“Yes, I know that,” Rosamund admitted in a voice completely devoid of emotion. “A pity, isn’t it?”

“IS it?”

Rosamund looked up, startled. She had said that it was a pity that their marriage had been legal and John was questioning the statement.

“But of course it is.” Deliberately she kept her voice steady, unemotional. “Since we both feel it was a mistake.”

“Not as far as I’m concerned,” John stated unequivocally.

Rosamund stared at him in amazement.

“But you said—”

“That I wished to heaven we hadn’t got married,” John nodded. “Yes, and I meant it! For the first time, you see, I realised—” he paused. “Look, Rosamund, though I admit that you’ve every justification for sending me packing, will you let me tell you all that led up to that—incident?”

“If you like,” she shrugged indifferently.

“Thank you,” he acknowledged gravely. “I’ll cut it as short as I can, but I need to go back a bit—to a time before you and I met. My father was an extremely rich man and a very generous one. Too generous, perhaps, as far as I was concerned. There simply wasn’t any need or incentive for me to work, so, as most young men in that situation would probably do, I devoted all my energies to having a good time. Then my father died and instead of having an allowance, however generous, I was a rich man in my own right.”

“
‘One of the most eligible bachelors of the day',"
Rosamund murmured.

“Just that,” John agreed. “At first, though it may seem improbable to you, I didn’t appreciate what that meant. And then something happened which drove the fact home beyond all doubt. There was a girl—I fell in love with her and I believed she cared for me. I was on the point of asking her to marry me when—I overheard a conversation between her and my best friend.” He paused and then went on grimly: “I heard Viola admit that she loved him, but it was out of the question for them to think of getting married since he was a poor man without prospects and she—she was very frank about it—hankered for the fleshpots. So, she told him coolly, she intended marrying me because I could give her everything that she wanted. He took it badly—tried to persuade her to change her mind. When he found that was impossible, he told her that this was the end and that he hoped he never saw her again. And then she laughed and told him that there was no need for melodrama. It wasn’t as if she loved me—he had no need to be jealous. They’d have to be very careful, of course, but—she didn’t finish the sentence, but there was no mistaking her meaning. Though she would be married to me, they would be lovers. He turned the idea down flat—but she was very lovely and he was deeply in love, so—” John shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps I ought to have told them then and there that I’d overheard them. But I didn’t. I was too sick at heart. I simply went away and left them to draw their own conclusions.” He drew a deep breath. “And while I’m not asking you to regard this as being an excuse for—all that has happened between you and me, I think perhaps you’ll agree that I had some reason for becoming a misanthrope where money was concerned.”

He looked at Rosamund enquiringly as if doubtful of her probable reactions.

“Every
reason,” Rosamund declared with a vehemence that surprised her.

“Thank you, that’s generous of you,” John said quietly. “Inevitably, of course, I lost faith in myself. I’d always realised that some of my circle were opportunists who regarded friendship—or what passed as that—as a means of feathering their own nests. But they didn’t really matter. Those two did. I’d thought that they both, in different ways, really cared for me. I’d have sworn it! At first, I was too stunned to think very coherently. Then I began to ask myself what I’d ever done to merit love or loyalty, and the answer to that was—nothing! I’d played my way through life on the money my father had earned. I’d never made the least effort of my own— except for an odd bit of writing now and again and that only in a dilettante sort of way, although I had had the idea for a play in my mind for some time. Now I decided that I’d really get down to it. I’d go away, live on the money my mother had left me and see if I could make anything of myself. I hunted for somewhere quiet where I wasn’t known and found the
Seven Stars.
It seemed ideal—then you turned up—”

Until now, Rosamund had listened in silence, sitting very still. Now she moved restlessly.

“John, please, is it any good going on? It can’t get us anywhere, you know. I mean, you’ve filled in the details, but I’d guessed that it must be something like that when I read the caption under your picture. That was why I—” she checked herself hastily, but not before it was clear what she had been going to say.

“Why you said nothing to me about your discovery?”

“Yes,” Rosamund admitted slowly. “I think, without actually putting it in words to myself, I knew then that it wasn’t really
me
you’d fallen in love with. It was just that
I
was in love with
you
and not with your money.”

“You’re quite right.” He spoke dispassionately, almost coldly, but he walked over to the window and stood with his back to her before he continued deliberately:

“There’s nothing I can say which can justify me in my own eyes for what I did. Don’t think I didn’t find you attractive—I did. But your chief attraction to me was the fact that your love was disinterested. That boosted my ego tremendously. I felt that, after all, I did amount to something!”

“Don’t!” Rosamund begged, flinching at the bitterness in his voice.

“Why not? I’ve got beyond the point where I’m willing to sail under false colours, even to get what I want. Besides, you’ve a right to know and to condemn me for that and for my refusal to believe you told me the truth.”

“But I don’t condemn you for that—I never did,” Rosamund protested. “After all, it was only my bare word—”

“That should have been enough,” John insisted sternly. “Even the little I knew of you should have told me that!” He paused. “Then—Lindacres. And in a breath, it seemed, you became a different person. Not the sweet, unworldly, trusting girl I thought I’d married. Nor the calculating gold-digger I afterwards believed you to be, but a loyal companion who stood by me in an emergency and to whom everybody turned for help, confident that you’d play fair and make the right decisions. Oh yes, that’s true,” as Rosamund made a little gesture of dissent. “Mrs. Brickwell, Cook, Miss Fletcher—they all looked to you for leadership because they knew they could trust you to be both practical and kind. And the same goes for Dr. Milward and young Ferris and Weeks. Even Sir George—” He paired and then repeated slowly: “Sir George. I suppose you didn’t realise, Rosamund, that I was absolutely eaten up with jealousy that evening he dined with us?”

“But why? I didn’t like his sort of compliments any more than you did.”

“I wasn’t in any mood to appreciate that,” John confessed wryly. “You see, short though the time has been, it’s been long enough for me to realise what a blind fool I was ever to have thought that money came into it. Over and over again you proved yourself to be loyal and sincere and—altogether desirable. Is it any wonder that
this
time, I fell in love with you—
you,
not just as a salve to my injured vanity, as a real person.”

“No, John,
no
!” Rosamund’s hands flew up as if to defend herself from an actual blow.

“It’s true. Quite true,” he said doggedly. “Though I’ve no way of proving it. Particularly seeing that—it’s the fact that I tried to snatch what should only have been mine if it came as a gift from you that you can’t forget or forgive, isn’t it?”

She nodded silently, her lips pressed close together.

“Yes, of course it is. Before—all this trouble, your kisses had been so sweet, so generous that I knew mine were welcome to you. And so, when I felt you shrink away from me, I knew what I’d done—and I loathed myself. That was why I said we shouldn’t have got married. In every possible way I’d betrayed your trust in me and, as a result, I’d lost you! If only I’d waited a little instead of rushing you into getting married so soon, I might have learned—”

Rosamund didn’t reply. Everything he had said was true—there was nothing more for either of them to add. But John seemed to think differently.

“I told you that I had come to Town to see my solicitor about the Orphanage and Lindacres. That was perfectly true, but all that was settled in one comparatively short interview. For the rest of the time I was trying desperately to discover some way in which to repair the damage I’d done. I came back to Lindacres to beg you to give me a chance to do that, though I’d no right to expect that you would. When I got there, I found your letter waiting for me and I knew that my task would be doubly hard since you so clearly wanted to have nothing more to do with me.” He paused as if expecting a reply, but when it didn’t come, he went on haltingly: “So it comes to this—we are married. But you need never again be afraid that I’ll try to snatch at the shadow. I want the substance of love, Rosamund. And I want you to have it as well. But I can only
tell
you that. Only time can prove to you that it’s true. So that’s what I’m asking you to do, give me time—will you do that? Because more than anything else in the world, I want you for my wife. So don’t put me out of your life, for if you do—” He left the sentence unfinished, but the torment in his eyes completed it for him.

But Rosamund hardened her heart. John had hurt her too badly for her to be willing ever to trust him again. Why, he himself had said that he had no right to ask it of her.

She heard him speak again, very quietly yet with an emphasis which was convincing.

“If ever you come to me, it will have to be of your own free will, Rosamund!”

“Then it will be never!” Rosamund declared passionately.

“That may well be,” John acknowledged gravely. “But those are my terms. I don’t want you on any others! ”

And without waiting for her reply, he turned and walked quickly out of the room. A moment later she heard the outer door close.

During the next two weeks Rosamund saw John twice— both times briefly at the solicitor’s office and with Dr. Rob present as well. There were statements to be made and sworn and documents to be signed, but on each occasion, once the business was concluded and they reached the street, John had said a brief good-bye and had left them.