A fly dawdling back to the town from the station, passed him, and pulled up, as he hesitated.
"Station, sir?" said the driver.
"No, Barford," said Wentworth, and he got in. The fly with its faded cushions and musty atmosphere seemed a kind of refuge. He breathed more freely when he was enclosed in it.
As in the garden of Eden desolation often first makes itself felt as a realisation of nakedness. We must creep away. We must hide. We have no protection, no covering.
Wentworth cowered in the fly. He passed without recognising them all the old familiar landmarks, the twisting white road that branched off to Priesthope, the dew ponds, the half hidden, lonely farms. He was in a strange country.
He looked with momentary curiosity at a weather-worn sign post which pointed forlornly where four roads met. It was falling to pieces with age, but yet it must have been put up there since the morning. He had never seen it before. He shouted to the driver that he had taken the wrong road. The man pointed with his whip to where, a mile away, the smoke of Barford rose among its trees. The landscape suddenly slid into familiar lines again. He recognised it, and sank back, confused and exhausted. The effort of speaking had hurt his throat horribly. Was he going mad? How could his throat hurt him like this—if it wasn't—if Michael had not——
He thrust thought from him. He would wait till he got home, till his own roof was safely over him, the familiar walls round him.
This was his gate. Here was his own door, with his butler looking somewhat surprised, standing on the steps.
He found himself getting out, and giving orders. He listened to himself telling the servant to pay the fly and to send word by it to his dog-cart to return home. Of course he had gone to Lostford in the dog-cart. He had forgotten that.
Then he heard his own voice ordering a whiskey and soda to be brought to him in the library. And he walked there.