"Very good, sir. Your clothes are all out. I'll turn on the hot water
in the bathroom."

Tallente threw off his rain and mud-soaked clothes, bathed, changed and
descended to the dining room just as the gong sounded. Robert was in
the act of moving the additional place from the little round dining
table which he had drawn up closer to the wood fire, but his master
stopped him.

"You can let those things be," he directed. "Take away the champagne,
though. I shan't want that."

Robert bowed in silent appreciation of his master's humour and began
ladling out soup at the sideboard. Tallente's lips were curled a
little, partly in self-contempt, with perhaps just a dash of self-pity.
It had come to this, then, that he must dine with fancies rather than
alone, that this tardily developed streak of sentimentality must be
ministered to or would drag him into the depths of dejection. He began
to understand the psychology of its late appearance. Stella's
artificial companionship had kept his thoughts imprisoned, fettered with
the meshes of an instinctive fidelity, and had driven him sedulously to
the solace of work and books. Now that it was removed and he was to all
practical purposes a free man, they took their own course. His life had
suddenly become a natural one, and all that was human in him responded
to the possibilities of his solitude, He had had as yet no time to
experience the relief, to appreciate his liberty, before he was face to
face with this new loneliness. To-night, he thought, as he looked at
the empty place and remembered his wistful, almost diffident invitation,
the solitude was almost unendurable. If she had only understood how