Mr. Fuller had made a hasty exit; but he waylaid Gwynneth on the road. "Excuse me, miss," he cried, and the girl felt bound to do so. Next moment she was trying to sort the mixed emotions in the saddler's face, for a few steps had brought them to his house, and he had halted at the workshop window.

"Well, miss, and what do you think of it?"

"Oh, Mr. Fuller, please don't ask me."

"I don't mean the sermon, miss; I mean the flock of sheep that come and listened to the sermon," said the saddler, with a bitterness that astonished Gwynneth.

"But, surely, Mr. Fuller, you were glad they did come? I was so thankful!" declared the girl.

"So was I, miss; so was I," said the saddler, grimly; "but, Gord love yer, do you suppose they ever would have shown their noses if you an' me hadn't given 'em the lead?"

"Then we ought to be very proud, Mr. Fuller; at least you ought, since but for you I never should have known in time."

"But do you think a man of 'em 'll admit it?" continued Fuller fiercely. "Not they—I know 'em. They'll take the credit, the moment there's any credit to take—them that hasn't given him a word or a look in all these years. But the reverend, he know—he know!"

"I'm sure he does," said Gwynneth, kindly; and left the forerunner to his ignoble jealousy, only hoping there was some foundation for it, and that a real reaction was already in the air.

Even on her way home there were further signs. Jones the schoolmaster, an implacable enemy these five years, but an emotional man all his life, was still dabbing his eyes as he held unguarded converse with the phlegmatic owner of the mill on the lock, who had been his fellow churchwarden in the days before the fire.

"I'll be his churchwarden again," declared the schoolmaster, "and Sir Wilton can say what he likes. We know who ruled the roast before, and we know——"

Gwynneth caught no more as she hurried on, her first desire a quiet hour without a whisper from the world. She wished to recall every word of the sermon, while every syllable remained in her mind, and then to write it all down and to possess it for ever. Such was her first feverish resolve; nor, analytical as she was, did she stop to analyse this. The stable gates were open; it never occurred to Gwynneth to wonder why. There was a good way through the stable-yard to the garden, whose uttermost end she might thus reach without being seen from the house. And Fraulein Hentig had known where she was thinking of going, had shaken Gwynneth not a little with her remonstrances, but would be none the less certain to ask questions when next they met.

Near the Italian garden was a certain walk, with stark yew hedges on either hand, and fine grass stretched like a drugget from end to end. Across this strip the old English flowers, poppies and peonies, hollyhocks and larkspur, faced each other in serried lines as in a country dance; and the vista ended in a thatched summer-house where it was always cool. The spot was a favourite haunt of Gwynneth, who would catch herself humming the old English songs there, and thinking of patches and powder and the minuet. It had not that effect this morning; she neither saw nor smelt the flowers, nor heard the thrush which was singing to her with persistent sweetness from the stately trees upon the lawn beyond. Gwynneth was in that other world which had existed all these years within half-a-mile of this one. What she heard was the virile cadence of the voice which had always thrilled her; strong and masterful in the beginning; softening all at once, as the people pressed in to hear; then for a little high-pitched and hoarse, spasmodic, tremulous, too touching even to remember with dry eyes; then that last pause, and the silver clarion of his proper voice once more and to the end. And what Gwynneth saw, through her tears, was the sunlight resting on that stricken head, as though God had stretched out His hand in final mercy and forgiveness.

But what she was to see, before many minutes were past, or the sermon over in her mind, was a dapper figure approaching between the old flowers and the spruce hedges, a figure in riding breeches, swinging a cutaway coat in his walk.

It was Sidney, ridden over from Cambridge on a hired horse. Gwynneth had time to come out of the summer-house to meet him, but none to think. So he had given her a kiss before she realised what that meant—and knew in her heart that it must be the last. And the next moment she saw that he was displeased.

"So here you are!" was his verbal greeting: "I've been looking for you all over the shop."

"I'm so sorry," said poor Gwynneth. "If you had only let us know——"

"Oh, that's all right; I took my risk, of course."

He looked her up and down, as she stood in the sunlight, tall and comely, her state of mind instinctively and successfully concealed; and the brown tinge came upon his handsome face as the annoyance vanished. Endearments fell from his lips, but now she made him keep his distance, though so tactfully that he obviously did not realise his repulse. Gwynneth looked at him for an instant with great compassion; then she led the way into the summer-house, her mind made up.

"You haven't been here all the morning, have you?" he went on. "No, I see you haven't; there are your gloves."

"Yes."

"Been for a walk?"

"Well, I did go for one."

"What do you mean?" demanded Sidney, struck at last by her manner."I've been to church!"

"What! Over to Linkworth and back?"

"No."

Her tone trembled; he was not helping her at all.

"Then what church did you go to, and what on earth's up with you, darling?"

"I went to our own church."

"But I thought that Lakenhall chap only came in the afternoon?"

"He doesn't go to the church."

Sidney stared an instant, and was on his feet the next. "You don't mean to say you've been up to the church talking to—to Carlton?" he cried.

"No, not talking to him."

"Then do you mind telling me what you do mean?"

Gwynneth did her best to explain the occasion and to describe the service, but found herself unable to do the subject justice in a few words, and drifted into a nervous enthusiasm as she went. Sidney's eyes seemed smaller than when she began; she had never known he had so sharp a chin. But he heard her out, standing in the doorway, and not always looking her way; it was when averted that his face looked so hard. When she had finished he gave her his whole attention, and was some time regarding her, his hands in his pockets, without a word.

"So you deliberately went to hear that blackguard!"

"You needn't call him that," said Gwynneth, hotly.

"But I do.""I should be ashamed to abuse him after all he has done!"

"That doesn't alter what—what you apparently and very properly know nothing about, Gwynneth."

"And I don't want to know!" cried the girl, indignant at his tone. "I only say, whatever he has done, he has paid very bitterly for it, and made such amends as were never made by anybody I ever heard of. He may have been all you say. He is more than all that I can say now!"

"And what do you say?" inquired Sidney, with polite contempt.

"That we shall honour ourselves in future by honouring him, and dishonour ourselves by continuing to dishonour him. He has had his punishment, and look how he has borne it! Why, he has done what was never done in the world before by one solitary man."

Gwynneth stopped breathless. Sidney eyed her coolly, his nostrils curling. "So that's your opinion," he sneered.

"It's a good deal more than that," cried Gwynneth. "It's my fixed conviction and personal resolve."

"To honour that fellow, eh?"

Gwynneth coloured.

"To the extent of attending his services when I happen to be here," she said. And Sidney gave her a pregnant look—a more honest look—angry and determined as her own.

"And what about me?" he said. "What if I object?"Gwynneth was slow to answer, to tell him the sharp truth outright.

"Do you mean to go your own way in spite of me, in spite of the governor, in spite of all of us?"

Gwynneth saw that she could not remain at the hall and follow such a course. So this question went unanswered like the last, though for a different reason. Meanwhile Sidney was accounting for her silence to his own satisfaction, and he now conceived that the moment had arrived for him to play the strong man.

"Look here, Gwynneth," said he, "this is all rot and bosh, and worse—if you'll take my word for it. And you must take my word, and take it on trust in a thing like this, or you never will in anything. I tell you this fellow Carlton is the most unspeakable skunk. But it isn't a thing we can discuss together. Isn't that enough for you? Isn't my wish enough, in a thing like this, which I know all about and you don't? Have I got to enforce it while we're still engaged? If so——"

Gwynneth had raised her head slowly, and at last she spoke.

"We are not engaged, Sidney," she said quietly.

"Not—engaged?"

"It has never been a proper engagement."

"A proper engagement!" Sidney gasped. "Not a public one, if you like! What difference does that make?"

"No difference. It only makes it—easier——"

"What does it make easier?" he demanded fiercely.Gwynneth was choking with humiliation. It was some moments before she could command her voice. Her distress was pitiful; but the young man was already busy pitying himself. A sudden change had come over Sidney. It was not in all respects a change for the worse. His cynical aplomb had already disappeared, leaving a tremulous, an angry, but a human being behind. So Gwynneth felt a leaning to him even at the last; but this time she knew her mind.

And she spoke it with equal candour and humility: it was all her fault: she could never forgive herself; but he would forgive her, when he saw for himself what the woman will always see quicker than the man. She liked him better than anybody she knew; that week at Cambridge had been the happiest week in her life; one day they would, they must, be good friends again. Meanwhile they had both made a miserable mistake. This was not love.

"Speak for yourself," cried Sidney, all bitterness and mortification. "And I never believed in a woman before," he groaned; "my God, I never shall again!"

And he strode out savagely into the sun; but a different Sidney was back next moment, one that reminded Gwynneth of the very old days, when he would pass her whistling with his dog. A sneer was on his lips, and his dry eyes glittered.

"I beg your pardon for making a scene, Gwynneth; it isn't in my line, as you know, and I apologise. But do you mind telling me when you discovered that you had—changed?""I have not changed, Sidney. That is my shame."

"Do you mean that you never did care about me?"

"Never in that way. I am ashamed to say it—more humiliated and ashamed than you can ever know. But it's the truth."

"Yet at the First Trinity ball, I remember, if you don't——"

His tone was more than Gwynneth could endure.

"Yes, I remember," she cried; "and I can explain it, though explanations are no excuse. Sidney, you know what my life was until the last few months? Happy enough in heaps of ways, but not the least gaiety in it; and suddenly I felt the want of it. I felt it first abroad, and you met that want in your May-week in a way beyond my dreams. You may sneer at me now, but you were awfully nice to me then, and I shall never, never forget it. You were so nice that I honestly did think for a little that you met every other want as well! Yet I tell you now, what I tried to tell you once before, that when once you had spoken nothing was the same. It was like touching a bubble. The bubble had burst."

"You felt like that from the first?"

Gwynneth turned away, for now they were both upon their feet, restlessly hovering between the summer-house and the sunlight.

"And yet it has taken you two months to tell me," pursued Sidney without remorse.

"I know; it was dreadful of me; yet I could not tell you till I was absolutely certain, and it is not so easy to be certain of oneself in such things. If you find no difficulty, Sidney, then you might pity those who do. Nevertheless, I did write, on my birthday, when you sent me those beautiful pearls. Sidney, you must take them back—for my sake. I meant to send them back at once, but you know what I heard that very morning! It may have been cowardly and weak, but how could I tell you I did not love you the moment I knew I was to have a little money of my own? It's hard enough as it is; but I had not the pluck for that. Yet it is hard enough now," repeated Gwynneth, with great feeling; "and you haven't made it easier, Sidney. No, I don't mean anything you may have said; you have not said more than I deserve. But you tempted me—you little know how you have tempted me—to be dishonest with you to the end. It would have been so easy to make poor Mr. Carlton the whole cause, and not to have told you the truth at all!"

"Then I wish to God you had done so!" Sidney cried out, revealing the character of his wound unawares, yet once more human, young, and vain. Moreover there was passion enough in his eyes and voice, as there had been in his wooing. "Besides," he continued, "poor Mr. Carlton, as you call him, is the cause, I don't care what you say. Curse him! Curse him, body and soul!"

Gwynneth was outside in the sun, doubly adorable now that he had lost her, and for other reasons too. Her sweet skin was flushed, and even her tears inflamed the unhappy young man. He looked at her long and passionately, then muttered venom through his teeth.

"What did you say?"

"I said it was like him, too, the blackguard!"

"I don't know what you mean, and I don't want to."

"It's as well," jeered Sidney, with exceeding malice; but already she was turning away. She was turning away without one word. In an instant he had her by both wrists, as the devil possessed himself.

"Let me go," cried Gwynneth. "You're hurting me!"

"I'm not. I'm not. I'm only going to let you know the kind of beast that's come between us."

Gwynneth stood with unresisting wrists. Her scorn was splendid.

"I am not sorry to have seen you in your true colours, Sidney."

"You are going to see some one else in his."

Her scorn had destroyed his last scruple. His eyes were devilish now.

"Let me go, you brute!"

"There are worse, Gwynneth, there are worse. It isn't a thing we can discuss, as I told you. But did you never notice the likeness?"

Her blank face put the involuntary question he desired.

"Only between the one big villain in this parish—and the one rather jolly little boy!"

At last her wrists were released. But Gwynneth remained standing in the sun. She was not looking at Sidney; on the contrary, her face declared her oblivious to his continued presence. It was white with several kinds of horror; it was pinched with many separate pangs. So she stood a few moments, then went her way slowly, only turning with a shudder. As for him, his fever subsided as he watched; and, before the diminishing figure had passed out of the vista of cropped hedges and crude flowers, even Sidney Gleed knew himself, for once in his life, for what he was and would be to its end.