hrough the wide open doors. A fine rain was falling,
but he did not notice it. He passed out through the gates and found
himself in the road. He stopped unconsciously, not knowing what to do
next.

A fly dawdling back to the town from the station, passed him, and pulled
up, as he hesitated.

"Station, sir?" said the driver.

"No, Barford," said Wentworth, and he got in. The fly with its faded
cushions and musty atmosphere seemed a kind of refuge. He breathed more
freely when he was enclosed in it.

As in the garden of Eden desolation often first makes itself felt as a
realisation of nakedness. We must creep away. We must hide. We have no
protection, no covering.

Wentworth cowered in the fly. He passed without recognising them all the
old familiar landmarks, the twisting white road that branched off to
Priesthope, the dew ponds, the half hidden, lonely farms. He was in a
strange country.

He looked with momentary curiosity at a weather-worn sign post which
pointed forlornly where four roads met. It was falling to pieces with
age, but yet it must have been put up there since the morning. He had
never seen it before. He shouted to the driver that he had taken the
wrong road. The man pointed with his whip to where, a mile away, the
smoke of Barford rose among its trees. The landscape suddenly slid into
familiar lines again. He recognised it, and sank back, confused and
exhausted. The effort of speaking had hurt his throat horribly. Was he
going mad? How could his throat hurt him like this--if it wasn't--if
Michael had not----

He thrust thought from him. He would wait till he got home, till his own
roof was safely over him, the familiar walls round him.

This was his gate. Here was his own door, with his butler looking
somewhat surprised, standing on the steps.

He found himself getting out, and giving orders. He listened to himself
telling the servant to pay the fly and to send word by it to his
dog-cart to return home. Of course he had gone to Lostford in the
dog-cart. He had forgotten that.

Then he heard his own voice ordering a whiskey and soda to be brought
to him in the library. And he walked there.

The afternoon post had arrived with the newspapers and he took up a
paper. But it was printed in some language unknown to him, though he
recognised some of the letters.

How long had he been gone, an hour, a day, a year?

He looked at the clock.

Half-past two. But this great shock with which the air