There was a long silence before he said:
“We have been very good friends, you and I, since I came back to England.”
His words were almost startling in their divergence from the subject upon which they had been conversing. The expression on Agnes's face suggested that she was at least puzzled if not absolutely startled by his digression.
“Yes,” she said mechanically, “we have indeed been good friends. I knew in an instant yesterday that it was to you I should go when I was in great need. I knew that you would help me.”
He looked at her gravely and in silence for some moments. Then he suddenly put out his hand to her.
“Good-bye,” he said quickly—unnaturally; and before their hands had more than met for the second time he turned and walked rapidly away to the gate, leaving her standing under the shady elm in the centre of the lawn.
For a moment or two she was too much surprised to be able to make any move. He had never behaved so curiously before. She was trying to think what she had said or what she had suggested that had hurt his feelings, for it seemed to her that his sudden departure might be taken to indicate that she had said something that jarred upon him.
She hastened across the lawn and through the tennis-ground, to intercept him on the road. Only a low privet hedge stood between the road and the gardens of The Kroll, and she reached this hedge and looked over it before he had passed. She saw him approaching; his eyes were upon the ground.
It was his turn to be startled as she spoke his name, looking over the hedge. He looked up quickly.
“Did I say anything that I should not have said just now?” she asked. “Why did you hurry away before our hands had more than met?”