“Then I may take it there’s no ill-feeling?” he said mechanically.
“No,” said Andy, and after a pause he held out his hand. “Good-night.”
He had had enough.
“Oh, good-night.”
Stamford escaped down the drive with a sense of immense relief. It had been horribly unpleasant, but it was over. Now for the next best thing.
Andy, meantime, stood in the shadow of the porch; he felt a queer reluctance to go back into the study—the same meaningless dislike that a child has for a place where it has been badly hurt, instinctive, based on the shadowy, primitive beginnings.
He closed the front door softly behind him, and followed the path round the house towards the church by force of habit. The night air blew cool upon his hot forehead, and the queer thud of his heart calmed down to its normal beat. But as his physical sensations ceased to trouble him, his realisation of what had happened grew clearer.
He fought off the moment when he must not only know, but realise, that Elizabeth could never be his wife, but it came nearer, with the slow, inevitable tread of such moments. He tried to pretend that he was listening to the wind, then to the clock striking two, then to a startled bird among the bushes—the inevitable moment marched on.
At last it was upon him.
But only the darkness, and the tomb of Brother Gulielmus where he sat, knew how he got through it.