"Like an organ playing in an empty church. My God! You're wonderful."
Then she had let him kiss her again; again, herself, being the one to draw away when emotion rose to stifling in her throat. Again was he obedient to her wishes.
They had arranged to meet the next morning on the cliffs. Liddiard had promised he would bring lunch.
"They'll think we're up at the Golf dub," he had said, for already in their minds had appeared that urgency for deception which should secure for them the certainty of their meeting.
But the next morning, after her conversation with Jane, Mary dispatched a note to Liddiard at the White Hart Hotel.
He tore it open with fingers that had dread in them.
"Meet me on the beach at 11.30," she had written, "near the bathing tents. Don't bother about lunch."
With a sudden chill it struck him. It was all over. The night had brought her calmer thoughts. Emotion was steadied in her now. She was not going to trust herself alone with him again. It was all finished. On an impulse he took a piece of paper and wrote on it--
"Have been called back to Somerset this morning; so sorry I shall have no opportunity to say good-by."
When he had written, he stared at it, reading it again and again.