She went out through the window on to the veranda, and so on into the garden.
It was cool out there and unutterably peaceful, with a tender, lucid twilight on the bare grass of the lawn; on the sea beyond it, and on the white gravel path by the low wall between. She saw it, the world that had held her and Robert, that, holding them, had taken on the ten days' splendour of their passion. It stood, divinely still in the perishing violet light, a world withdrawn and unsubstantial, yet piercingly, intolerably near.
Indoors Jane waited. It was not yet the half-hour. She waited till the clock struck and Marston came for his answer.
He looked round the room, and his face, under its deference, betrayed his sharp annoyance at finding himself alone with Miss Lucy.
"Pardon me," he said, "I thought that Mrs. Tailleur was here."
"Mrs. Tailleur asked me to tell you that she cannot see you. She has gone to her room."
"To her room?"
He stared at her, and his face loosened in a sudden incredulity and dismay.
"Did she tell you she was going there?"