She stood, her hands loosely clasped, her eyes gazing into the sunny vacancy of sky, above the rock.
Fenwick advanced a step. He felt that he must speak, must grovel to her—repeat some of the things he had said in his letter. But here, in her presence, all words seemed too crude, too monstrous. His voice died away.
So there was no repetition of the excuses, the cry for pardon he had spent the night on; and she made no reference to them.
They walked back to the hotel, talking coldly, precisely, almost as strangers, of what should be done. Fenwick—whose work indeed was finished—would return to England that night. After his departure, Madame de Pastourelles would inform her father of what had happened; a famous solicitor, Lord Findon's old friend, was to be consulted; all possible measures were to be taken once more for Phoebe's discovery.
At the door of the hotel, Fenwick raised his hat. Eugénie did not offer her hand; but her sweet face suddenly trembled afresh—before her will could master it. To hide it, she turned abruptly away; and the door closed upon her.
CHAPTER XI
After a moderately bright morning, that after-breakfast fog which we owe to the British kitchen and the domestic hearth was descending on the Strand. The stream of traffic, on the roadway and the pavements, was passing to and fro under a yellow darkness; the shop-lights were beginning to flash out here and there, but without any of their evening cheerfulness; and on the passing faces one saw written the inconvenience and annoyance of the fog—the fear, too, lest it should become worse and impenetrable.
Fenwick was groping his way along, eastward; one moment feeling and hating the depression of the February day, of the grimy, overcrowded street; the next, responsive to some dimly beautiful effect of colour or line—some quiver of light—some grouping of phantom forms in the gloom. Halfway towards the Law-Courts he was hailed and overtaken by a tall, fair-haired man.
'Hallo, Fenwick!—just the man I wanted to see!'
Fenwick, whose eyes—often very troublesome of late—were smarting with the fog, peered at the speaker, and recognised Philip Cuningham. His face darkened a little as they shook hands.