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.