CHAPTER XXVIIIIt was Reggie's making no sign which made everything so plain to Jean. If she went back to Windlestraws she knew now that it would mean going back to Reggie. He would wait for a long time and his significant silence would be punctuated by Beatrice's friendly letters, all about primroses and what she was going to do with the rock garden. But if Jean could hold out long enough there would come a moment when Reggie's silence, which was now so full, would empty itself and she would at last be safe. It would be like the feeling of a patient on the operating table when the anæsthetic takes hold of him and he is carried away from the tyranny of consciousness. Jean longed for the moment when her conflicting, wavering, threatened will would be brushed aside, and she could find herself
