She had disengaged her hand, and was creeping away from him in the half darkness, treading softly and going off like a gleam.
“Kate!” he called.
He heard her laughter, he heard the drowsy hum of the gill, he could smell the warm odour of the gorse bushes.
“But this is madness,” he thought. “This is the fever of an hour. Yield now and I am ruined for life. The girl has come between me and my aims, my vows, my work—everything. She has tempted me, and I am as weak as water.”
“Kate!”
She did not answer.
“Come here this moment, Kate. I have something to say to you.”
“Bite!” she said, coming back and holding an apple to his lips. She had plucked it in the overgrown garden.
“Listen! I'm leaving Ramsey for good—don't intend to practise in the northern courts any longer—settling in Douglas—best work lies there, you see—worst of it is—we shan't meet again soon—not very soon, you know—not for years, perhaps——”
He began by stammering, and went on stuttering, blurting out his words, and trembling at the sound of his own voice.