“Yes, don’t you?”
Owen realized that, although he had never thought Valeria subtle, he had at least supposed her to be capable of appreciating his own subtlety. But subtleties had not, apparently, really weighed with Val at all.
The sight of her tear-mottled face annoyed Owen’s æsthetic sense so much, and he felt so sincerely ashamed of his annoyance, that it constrained him to absent himself from the house all the afternoon. He would gladly have left St. Gwenllian altogether and felt sure that the Canon expected nothing less of him, but Flora brought him a piteous little message from Val to beg that he would remain until “something was settled.”
In the forlorn hope that this had been achieved, Quentillian returned.
An eager grasp met him almost upon the threshold.
“Owen, dear lad! Where have you been? I have been uneasy—most uneasy, at your prolonged absence.”
“I’m very sorry, sir.”
“Nay, so long as all is well with you! I should have had more faith.”
The Canon smiled gravely, and relief was latent in the smile. Quentillian suddenly realized that Canon Morchard had not improbably known the sub-conscious fear of his guest and protégé having sought some drastic means of ending an existence in the course of which he had been played so ill a turn.
His sense of his own inadequacy increased every moment.