He could not realise at first that Maisie, whom he had ordered to go had left him without a word of farewell.

He was savagely angry against Torpenhow, who had brought upon him this humiliation and troubled his miserable peace.

Then his dark hour came and he was alone with himself and his desires to get what help he could from the darkness.

The queen could do no wrong, but in following the right, so far as it served her work, she had wounded her one subject more than his own brain would let him know.
'It's all I had and I've lost it,' he said, as soon as the misery permitted clear thinking.

'And Torp will think that he has been so infernally clever that I shan't have the heart to tell him.