He paced along the road, dark beneath the over-arching trees, till he came to the lodge and gate at the end of the wood. There was no sign of Lance returning, so he walked on, and bending to the left, came, after a climb, out upon the highroad to Fransdale. Nobody was about. He sat down upon a grassy hummock, watching the pretty horned sheep cropping the short grass about him in the fragrant evening. He was so still that the sheep grazed nearer and nearer.
He was thinking that man is strangely in the grip of circumstance.
Since that night of parting at Clunbury, he had been through deep waters. Carol, who had been so long excluded, was summoned at last. The final knock-out had been too serious for the champion to bear alone.
He had laid all the circumstances before the Bishop, and told him that he would follow his advice as to the course now to be pursued—whether he should let things go on, or make one more effort to show Melicent what he believed to be the truth, to induce her to break her engagement.
In the light of what he now heard—namely, that Melicent had almost at once recognised Bert—Mayne had little difficulty in falling in with Bert's opinion as to her reason for engaging herself to Lance. His disapproval of the said proceeding was so grave that he felt, and said, that he really thought it would be better for Bert to have nothing more to do with her.
"Incredible selfishness and duplicity," he mercilessly called it at first, till warned by Bert's rising anger that strictures upon Melicent would merely have the effect of drying up the flow of confidence.
"I began the duplicity," said Bert doggedly. "I don't see what she could do but follow suit."
"Does that excuse your further duplicity," came the answering thrust, "in proceeding to make love to her while Lance was in Russia?"
"I'm hanged if I see what the d—" A sudden pause. "I quite fail to see what other course I could have taken. They were to be married when he came back. I had got to show her before then that the thing couldn't be done. And I succeeded, within a hair's-breadth. If it hadn't been for my d—! Beg pardon! if it hadn't been for my—unfortunate temper, I should have succeeded."
"From what you tell me," the Bishop opined, "it really seems as if she does like you best, but as if her pride would not allow her to give way. The question is—Has your violence destroyed your chance finally? I think you ought to find out."