â??Look hereâ??â??â? His words were rough, but his voice was ì?¬ì?°ì??ë°? gentle. â??For Heaven's sake, don't go and expose yourselfâ??expose usâ?â??for she had made a gesture expressive of entire disregard of all malign inferences with regard to herselfâ??â??to the whole household! It is bad enough already!â?

He took her hand, and she ceased to weep, and looked up into the face of her supreme arbiter with a dull submission.

â??You must take these three notes that I am going to give you,â? he said authoritatively, â??and go quietly up to your room and ring for the servant and ask for your bill and pay itâ??I can't do all this for you, or I wouldâ??but I will order the trap to take you to the station in time for the 12:45!â?

â??Drive to the station with me,â? she murmured.

â??No, I must not do that, but I will tell you what I will do. As soon as you have made all your arrangements, we will take a little walk in the Park, shall we?â?

He spoke like an ascetic, dealing himself out many penances, and but one indulgence. His tone throughout was businesslike and decided, he was no longer the quiet indifferent dreamer of dreams, but the efficient man of the world, the man of action; and the fanciful hysterical woman at his side was completely dominated by his decision, and stilled for the moment into something like acquiescence with her fate.

She carried out all his directions faithfully and{168} accurately, and in less than half an hour, joined him in the road outside the inn, veiled and spectacled, and demure as a nun about to take the vow!

â??I have told them,â? he said, â??to bring the trap round to the Park Gates to meet you. So you will not need to go back to the inn at all. We have just half an hour.â?

â??But you are wasting your whole morning's work,â? she said as they turned in at the Park Gates. It was the first thing that occurred to her to say.

â??Oh, just for once!â? he replied. â??My work will have no cause to complain of meâ??after to-day.â?

She shuddered at the grimness of his accentâ??she apprehended his meaning only too well. She seemed to see him in her mind's eye, as he would be henceforth, stooping, brooding, gloating over his work in the dell of Brignal, alone, as he was before she came there, and mildly, dully happy perhaps, as he may have been, before the Human Interest came to trouble him.

And yetâ??â??He does not want to let me see how he feels it,â? was the secret consolation that lay all the while at the back of her thought, explaining his brusqueness, his taciturnity, his hardness, which her surface mind could not help resenting and deprecating. Her soul's life, which was then at its lowest ebb, lived on that thought, and her body took courage from it.

She walked into the Park almost briskly by his side, and when they had travelled a certain distance{169} along the broad path, he made a significant movement of his hand towards her spectacles.

â??Can you take those things off?â? he asked her, imperiously.

She obediently doffed the symbol of her martyrdom and return to the paths of virtue, and handed them to him. He folded the spectacles and put them in his coat pocket.

â??The bill was only thirteen pounds,â? she next remarked, holding out the notes he had lent her. â??I had plenty of money of my own, so I return these.â?

The notes, too, he put into his pocket without comment. Then she said reproachfully:â??

â??Don't you want to know my name?â?

He started. â??Your name? That does not matter, does it?â?

â??But you surely must know my name to write to me by?â?

â??I am not going to write to you.â?

â??Why not?â? There was a sharp note of prescient anguish in her voice.

â??I am not good at writing letters.â?

â??Ah, no, it isn't that,â? she answered sadly. â??You mean of course that you want to go quite out of my life.â?

â??What can I do?â?

â??Do!â? she repeated after him vaguely. Thenâ??â??Must you?â?

â??Yesâ??I must.{170}â?

â??But it isn't possible,â??no, it isn't possible!â? she cried.

â??Quite possible,â? he answered her doggedly. â??I did not know you a month agoâ??I shall not know you a month hence, that's all!â?

She wailed out gently, like a child. â??But what am I to do? What are you going to do?â?

â??I am going to do my work,â? he answered her severely and coldly. â??My work, that I have been letting go to the dogs lately. I shall paint and paintâ??like the very devilâ??as I did before you came. You must do that too. Work is the only thing, I find.â?

â??Work, work, honest work!â? she repeated mechanically. â??But will you tell me what work I have to do? It is all very well for youâ??you speak as if you quite looked forward to your life without meâ??but I shall eat my heart out.â?

â??Oh, people say that, but there is a certain savage pleasure in renunciation, as you will find.â?

His tone was so extraordinarily bitter, that she cried out joyfully, â??Oh, then you do care a little? You speak of renunciation! Then I can speak. I was afraid to. I was beginning to thinkâ??that you had onlyâ??oh, how difficult it is to say these things!â??that you had onlyâ??proposedâ??to me, because I had compromised myself by staying here with you so long. Out of pity, you know!â?

They had left the Broad Walk, and were wandering down a track in the undergrowth. He turned round{171} to her, and his voice was quite different from the one he had been hitherto using.

â??You are quite wrong if you think that. On the contraryâ??â??â? He stopped, and seemed embarrassed for the first time. â??It was what I wantedâ??I said that I loved youâ??and I did. I doâ??onlyâ??â??â?

â??Thenâ??thenâ??if you can say thatâ??â??â? She seized his hand, raised it to her lips, and kissed it. â??Then let himâ??let my husband divorce me! I must say it! I can't let myself drown without a word! Mortimer will have every excuse to divorce me, don't you see? I have been living practically alone with you for a whole month! It looks bad enoughâ??even old Mr. Popham saw it. I could not defend itâ??and I won't! Mortimer will have to divorce me, and we will marry each other and be happy.... Why do you shake your head like that? No! But why not? You think my proposal dreadful! So it is, but I would do anythingâ??anything in the world to come to you.â?

â??And so would I for youâ??you must not doubt that!â? he replied, and his slow deliberate tones in no wise expressed the emotion that, for her comfort, she could see in his eyes. He gave her back her hands, as it were.

â??Anything,â?â??he repeated gravely, â??but a dishonourable thing! No, not even for you!... Look here! it is now half past elevenâ??you can only just do it! The trap will be there already! You shall leave me here.... Pleaseâ??don't make diffi{172}culties, my dear. It has to be. We have decided it, haven't we? Good-bye ... good-bye!â?

She did not cry. She stood still and leant her head against the trunk of a huge beech tree, and felt her hair catch in its rough bark, and half closed her eyes in anticipation of a parting that would be worse to bear than a blow. Would he kiss her? He must, and yet she would not ask him.

He did; he took her in his arms, and gratified her great love with a kiss more perfunctory than passionate, perhaps, and which yet awakened the woman's heart in her body once and for all. Then he turned sharply on his heel and raised his hatâ??she smiled even in her misery at the irony of it, but she understood him nowâ??and left her.

She dared not watch him go, lest she fall into the crime of calling him back to her. He might hate her for that. She looked up into the branches of the tree overhead, till a sudden rush of tears mercifully blinded her!

Ten minutes later, she made her way down the Broad Walk to the Gate, turning a foolish unintelligent stare on the porter who opened it for her as he had done for Rivers ten minutes beforeâ??she felt a wild desire to ask him how her lover had looked as he passed through. Still in a merciful dream she mounted the steps of the dog-cart that was waiting in the road for her, and was whirled away in the direction of Barnard Castle.

She was wrong in her suppositionâ??Rivers had not{173} left the Park, but had turned down a little side path to the right. He stayed in the Park till he heard the sound of the wheels of the dog-cart going past the high boundary wall. Then he walked with his quick elastic step to the gate, and back to the â??Heather Bell.â?

â??I wonder if I shall ever paint another decent picture?â? was the purely technical remark that he made to himself. He was very pale, and he lifted his hat off, once or twice, and breathed deeply as the cold morning air met his forehead.

â??A lady to see you, Mr. Rivers,â? said Jane Anne to him, as he crossed the porch.