"You're very hard, father," she said simply.
"The ways of the transgressors are hard," he replied, pointing still towards the gate. "If you'd come here in shame and humiliation, if you'd come here as one as had learnt the truth, you'd have found me all that you sought. But you come here a very ignorant woman, Marcia, and you leave me a little harder than ever before, and you leave the curses that choke my throat a little hotter, a little more murderous."
His clenched fist was pointing towards Mandeleys, his face was like granite. Marcia turned and left him without a word, opened the gate, walked across the little strip of turf, and half shrank from, half clung to the hand which helped her up into the car.
"Get away quickly, please," she implored him. "Don't talk to me, James. Outside the gates as quickly as you can go!"
He started his engine, and they drove off, through the lodge gates into the country lane, where the hedges were beautiful with fresh green foliage and fragrant with early honeysuckle.
"To London," she begged. "Don't stop—anywhere yet."
He nodded and drove a little faster, his eyes always upon the road. It was not until they had reached the heath country and the great open spaces around Newmarket that a little colour came back into her cheeks.
"It wasn't a success, James," she said quietly.
"I was afraid it mightn't be," he admitted.