It was calm, with a dark-blue sky, and a golden moon, and the lighted street full of people out for airing. The great cathedral, cutting the heavens with its massive towers, was shut. No means of getting in; and while they stood there looking up the thought came into Nedda's mind: Where would they bury poor Tryst who had killed himself? Would they refuse to bury that unhappy one in a churchyard? Surely, the more unhappy and desperate he was, the kinder they ought to be to him!
They turned away down into a little lane where an old, white, timbered cottage presided ghostly at the corner. Some church magnate had his garden back there; and it was quiet, along the waving line of a high wall, behind which grew sycamores spreading close-bunched branches, whose shadows, in the light of the corner lamps, lay thick along the ground this glamourous August night. A chafer buzzed by, a small black cat played with its tail on some steps in a recess. Nobody passed.
The girl's heart was beating fast. Derek's face was so strange and strained. And he had not yet said one word to her. All sorts of fears and fancies beset her till she was trembling all over.
“What is it?” she said at last. “You haven't—you haven't stopped loving me, Derek?”
“No one could stop loving you.”
“What is it, then? Are you thinking of poor Tryst?”
With a catch in his throat and a sort of choked laugh he answered:
“Yes.”
“But it's all over. He's at peace.”
“Peace!” Then, in a queer, dead voice, he added: “I'm sorry, Nedda. It's beastly for you. But I can't help it.”