"Then—I am afraid my visit is something in the nature of an intrusion." Mr. Pixley bowed his fullest acquiescence in this very proper estimate of his position, and the pince-nez intimated that the way out lay just behind him and that the sooner he took advantage of it the better.
"I can only say, by way of apology," added Graeme, "that I was wholly unaware of what you have just told me. I will wish you good-day, Mr. Pixley."
Mr. Pixley and the pince-nez wafted him towards the door, and the lumpy cobbles of the courtyard outside seemed to him, for the moment, absolutely typical of life.
He went back home numbed and sore at heart. It was hard to believe this of Margaret Brandt.
And yet—he said to himself—it was wholly he who was to blame. He had deceived himself. He had wished to believe what he had so earnestly desired should be. Possibly he had closed his eyes to facts and indications which might have enlightened him if he had been on the look-out for them. Possibly—well, there!—he had played the fool unconsciously, and he was not the first. It only remained for him now to play the man.
He felt sore, and bruised, and run down, and for the moment somewhat at odds with life. He would get away from it all to some remote corner, to rest for a time and recover tone, and then to work. For work, after all, is the mighty healer and tonic, and when it is to one's taste there are few wounds it cannot salve.
PART THE THIRD
I
Six o'clock next morning found Graeme on the deck of the Ibex as she threaded her way swiftly among the bristling black rocks that guard the coast of Guernsey.