"I don't want to see her. I don't want you to see her. You should never have anything to do with suffering. It hurts you. It kills you. You ought to be taken care of. You ought to be kept from the sight and sound of it." He gazed wildly round the Heath. "If Brodrick was any good he'd take you out of this damned place."
"I wouldn't go. Poor darling, she can't bear me out of her sight. I believe I've worn a path going and coming."
They had left the beaten path. Their way lay in a line drawn straight across the Heath from Brodrick's house. It was almost as if her feet had made it.
"Jinny's path," he said.
They were silent, and he gathered up, as it were, the burden of their silence when he stopped and faced her with his question—
"How are you going on?"
LIX
A YEAR passed and half a year, and she had not found an answer to Tanqueray's question.
She had gone on somehow. He himself had made it easier for her by his frequent disappearances. He had found a place somewhere on Dartmoor where he hid himself from the destroyers, from the dreadful little people, where he hid himself from Rose. It helped her—not to have the question raised.