Mary met him at Whitcombe, and they walked home, sending his trunk and portmanteau on in the carriage with Widger. He had anticipated their meeting with strange emotion, feeling as if he were returning to her after a time of misunderstanding, richer in knowledge, more capable of sympathy. He had not seen her since the first performance of "The Magic Casement," and very much had happened to them since then. His desire for Cecily seemed to have died. He had not troubled to visit her in London ... he could have found time to do so, had he been anxious to see her ... but he had not the wish. He had not written to her about Jimphy ... he could not bring himself to do that ... and the thought that she might wish to see him did not stir his mind. He felt for her what a man feels for a woman he has loved, but now loves no more: neither like nor dislike, but, occasionally, curiosity that did not last long. She moved him as little as Sheila Morgan had done when he saw her in the field at Ballymartin, big with child, watching her husband drilling.

"There are permanent things in one's life, and there are impermanent things ... and you can't turn the one into the other," he thought to himself, as the little branch railway drove down the Axe Valley. "I wanted Cecily ... and then I didn't want her. There's no more to be said about it than that!"

There were very few people waiting on the platform when the train drew into Whitcombe, and so Henry and Mary saw each other immediately, and when he saw her, standing on the windy platform, with her hand to her hat, he felt more powerfully than he had ever felt it, his old love for her surging through him. Nothing could ever divert him from her for very long ... inevitably he would return to her ... whatever of permanence there was in his life was centred in her. He led her out of the station and they walked along the road at the top of the shingle ... and as they walked, suddenly he turned to her and, drawing her arm in his, told her that he loved her.

"I haven't much to offer you, Mary ... I'm a poor sort of fellow at the best ... but I need you, and!..."

She did not answer, but she looked up at him with shining eyes....

"My dear!" he said, and drew her very close to him.