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‘I have come to get your answer,’ he said; ‘I have been walking about the hills like a madman for hours. I have not been near her; I am afraid. Tell me what you mean to do?’

Tregellan rose, shrugged his shoulders, pointed to his valise.

‘God help you both! I would have saved you if you had let me. The Quimperle Courrier passes in half-an-hour. I am going by it. I shall catch a night train to Paris.’

As Sebastian said nothing; continued to regard him with the same dull, anxious gaze, he went on after a moment:

‘You did me a grave injustice; you should have known me better than that. God knows I meant nothing shameful, only the best; the least misery for you and her.’

‘It was true then?’ said Sebastian, curiously. His voice was very cold; Tregellan found him altered. He regarded the thing as it had been very remote, and outside them both.

‘I did not know it then,’ said Tregellan, shortly.

He knelt down again and resumed his packing. Sebastian, leaning against the bed, watched him with absent intensity, which was yet alive to trivial things, and he handed him from time to time a book, a brush, which the other packed mechanically with elaborate care. There was no more to say, and presently, when the chambermaid entered for his luggage, they went down and out into the splendid sunshine, silently. They had to cross the Square to reach the carriage, a dusty ancient vehicle, hooded, with places for four, which waited outside the postoffice. A man in a blue blouse preceded them, carrying Tregellan’s things. From the corner they could look down the road to Quimperle, and their eyes both sought the white house of Doctor Mitouard, standing back a little in its trim garden, with its one incongruous apple tree; but there was no one visible.

Presently, Sebastian asked, suddenly:

‘Is it true, that you said last night: divorce to a Catholic–?’

Tregellan interrupted him.

‘It is absolutely true, my poor friend.’

He had climbed into his place at the back, settled himself on the shiny leather cushion: he appeared to be the only passenger. Sebastian stood looking drearily in at the window, the glass of which had long perished.

‘I wish I had never known, Tregellan! How could I ever tell her!’

Inside, Tregellan shrugged his shoulders: not impatiently, or angrily, but in sheer impotence; as one who gave it up.

‘I can’t help you,’ he said, ‘you must arrange it with your own conscience.’

‘Ah, it’s too difficult!’ cried the other: ‘I can’t find my way.’

The driver cracked his whip, suggestively; Sebastian drew back a little further from the off wheel.

‘Well,’ said the other, ‘if you find it, write and tell me. I am very sorry, Sebastian.’

‘Good-bye,’ he replied. ‘Yes! I will write.’

The carriage lumbered off, with a lurch to the right, as it turned the corner; it rattled down the hill, raising a cloud of white dust. As it passed the Mitouards’ house, a young girl, in a large straw hat, came down the garden, too late to discover whom it contained. She watched it out of sight, indifferently, leaning on the little iron gate; then she turned, to recognize the long stooping figure of Sebastian Murch, who advanced to meet her.