"Steady on!" said Bert, getting out his words with difficulty. "Listen a moment! She may be offering you your freedom because she believes you desire it. She is—very proud. She may think this miserable tittle-tattle has shaken your faith in her, and she offers you your way out. What you have to discover, or so it seems to me, is the cost to herself. Does she want to be free?" He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. "Everyone round here will say you have treated her badly if it's broken off now. That doesn't matter if it isn't true. But make sure—make sure, for God's sake!"
Lance stared at him.
"You're a queer chap. You must want the engagement to be off—that would give you your chance. Yet you send me to her!"
Bert shrugged his shoulders.
"Well," he said, with a half laugh, "I've discovered to-day that I've been mistaken all these years. Ever since I was four-and-twenty I have believed that most of everything on this earth I desired—her. Now I find there is something that I desire more—her happiness. If you're the man to make her happy, in God's name go and do it."
CHAPTER XXXVI
WHAT CHANCED UPON THE MOORS
"What can I give thee back, O liberal
And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,
And laid them on the outside of the wall
For such as I to take or leave withal?"
—SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE.
Lancelot had gone to Glen Royd.
Bert found that he could not stay indoors. He wandered out, through the gardens, into the long carriage drive which ran upon the side of the ravine, among the pines, with a sheer ascent on one hand, and a sheer dip on the other, down to where the trout stream rushed over its noisy bed.