“You have changed greatly,” she said.
“That’s very possible.” There was a pause. He continued. “And you? Forgive me. I haven’t even asked whether you are well——”
“Oh, I’ve been all right. I spent the winter abroad, and now I’m staying with Mrs. Woolcombe at ‘The Towers.’ Major Olifant is away.”
They came up suddenly against the wicket-gate of Mrs. Pettiland’s garden. A light shone through the yet undrawn curtains in his old bedroom. He raised an enquiring hand.
“Myra?”
“Yes. I’m in Mrs. Pettiland’s room in the front. She would give it up to me. I’ve been helping to nurse—as well as I can. I’ve been in all day. That’s why I came out for a walk this evening.”
“You must be tired.”
“I am.”
He waited, hoping against hope, for a word revoking his sentence. None came. The steel sinew that ran through him, and was answerable for all his accomplishment, stiffened. He would make no appeal ad misericordiam. He had suffered enough in expiation. He had come to the end of his tether. For pity masking the last year’s hatred and contempt he had no use. He opened the gate for her. She passed in and he closed it and the click of the latch sounded like the crack of finality; for Olivia, taken almost unawares, as for Triona. They stood for a while, the wooden barrier between them, in the gathering darkness.
Impulsively she exclaimed: “We can’t part like this, with a thousand things unexplained.”