"You are no Lotus-eater: no shirker. You are just resting in the garden in the evening of a well-spent day, and that is right."
"For me there is no rest," he replied. "To-morrow I go to Biarritz, and thence wherever my fancy or my doctor's instructions send me; but I shall carry with me the burdens of the village. It is selfish of me to tell you this, for I would not make you sad, but I am a lonely man, and I am going away alone, and somewhat against my will, but Trempest insists.
"I think it has done me good to unburden myself to you, and I will say only this one word more. Always, when I return, there has been some tragedy, great or small, which I think I might have hindered."
"Surely not," I murmured, "in so small a place."
He rested his arm upon my garden gate and smiled. "A week ago I witnessed a terrible encounter between two redbreasts in the lane yonder. They are very tenacious of their rights, and one of them, I imagine, was a trespasser from the other side the hedge. They are country birds, yet very pugnacious, and the little breasts of these two throbbed with passion. But when I came near them they flew away, and I hope forgot their differences. I never even raised a stick—my mere presence was sufficient. And therein is a parable. Good-night, Miss Holden, and au revoir!"
He opened the gate, raised his hat, and was gone.
CHAPTER VIII
CHRISTMAS DAY AT WINDYRIDGE
Christmas has come and gone, and so far not a flake of snow has fallen. Rain there has been in abundance, and in the distance dense banks of fog, but no frost to speak of, and none of the atmospheric conditions I have always associated with a northern Yuletide.