"Nan," he said, in his voice a curious charm of appeal, "do you know it's nearly a year since I saw you? And now—now I've only half an hour!"
"Only half an hour?" she repeated vaguely.
"Yes, I go back to Devonshire to-night. But I craved a glimpse of the
'Beloved' before I went."
The words brought Nan sharply back to herself. He was still the same incomprehensible, unsatisfactory lover as of old, and with the realisation a cold fury of scorn and resentment swept over her, blotting out what she had always counted as her love for him. It was as though a string, too tightly stretched, had suddenly snapped.
She answered him indifferently.
"To cheer you on your way, I suppose?"
"No. I shouldn't"—significantly—"call it cheering. I've been back in England a month, alone in the damned desolation of Dartmoor, fighting—fighting to keep away from you."
She looked at him with steady, scrutinising eyes.
"Why need you have kept away?" she asked incisively.
"At the bidding of the great god Circumstance. Oh, my dear, my dear"—speaking with passionate vehemence—"don't you know . . . don't you understand that if only I weren't a poor devil of a painter with my way to make in a world that can only be bought with gold—nothing should part us ever again? . . . But as it is—"