"For a great deal—for all you know of, and for the more you don't know."
"Of course I forgive you—but I thank you most."
"No, you must forgive me most—are you sure that you forgive me for what you don't know as well as for what you know?"
"Quite sure"—her voice trembled a little, for he was beginning to frighten her.
"Then good-bye."
"Good-bye. I—I hope I haven't brought you very far out of your way."
He muttered something unintelligible, pulled off his cap, and left her.
He walked quickly, pricked on by a discovery which was also a triumph. Quentin Lowe had not taken Tony from him after all. The Tony he loved had never known Quentin Lowe, she had been no man's friend but Nigel Furlonger's—and so much his friend that when he had been taken from her she would not stay without him, but herself had gone away. Quentin Lowe loved a beautiful woman—proud and sweet and assured, with just a dash of the prig about her. Nigel had never loved this woman, he had loved a little girl—and the little girl who had been his comrade in the Kentish lanes and the ruins of Brambletye, would never be any man's but his.
He plunged recklessly through the fields, and recklessly into Furnace Wood. Lowe could not be far off. He must have missed the fast train from Victoria, but the next one arrived only an hour or so later. Nigel hurried through the wood, now coal dark, and full of a strange dread for him—though he did not know of the ghosts which haunted it. As he caught his first glimpse of the faintly crimsoned west, he saw a figure outlined against it. Some one was coming down the slope of Furnace Field. It must be Lowe.