to answer him again....

He remained motionless, watching her retreating figure. An
extraordinary sense of loss came into his mind, a vague impulse to
pursue her and pour out vague passionate protestations....

Not once did she look back. She was already remote when he began
hurrying after her. Once he was in motion he quickened his pace and
gained upon her. He was within thirty yards of her as she drew near
the gates.

His pace slackened. Suddenly he was afraid she might look back. She
passed out of the gates, out of his sight. He stopped, looking where
she had disappeared. He sighed and took the pathway to his left that
led back to the bridge and Vigours'.

Halfway across this bridge came another crisis of indecision. He
stopped, hesitating. An impertinent thought obtruded. He looked at his
watch and saw that he must hurry if he would catch the train for
Earl's Court and Vigours'. He said Vigours' might go to the devil.

But in the end he caught his train.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE CROWNING VICTORY.

That night about seven Ethel came into their room with a waste-paper
basket she had bought for him, and found him sitting at the little
toilet table at which he was to "write." The outlook was, for a London
outlook, spacious, down a long slope of roofs towards the Junction, a
huge sky of blue passing upward to the darkling zenith and downward
into a hazy bristling mystery of roofs and chimneys, from which
emerged signal lights and steam puffs, gliding chains of lit window
carriages and the vague vistas of streets. She showed him the basket
and put it beside him, and then her eye caught the yellow document in
his hand. "What is that you have there?"

He held it out to her. "I found it--lining my yellow box. I had it at
Whortley."

She took it and perceived a chronological scheme. It was headed
"SCHEMA," there were memoranda in the margin, and all the dates had
been altered by a hasty hand.

"Hasn't it got yellow?" she said.

That seemed to him the wrong thing for her to say. He stared at the
document with a sudden accession of sympathy. There was an
interval. He became aware of her hand upon his shoulder, that she was
bending over him. "Dear," she whispered, with a strange change in the
quality of her voice. He knew she was seeking to say something that
was difficult to say.

"Yes?" he said presently.

"You are not grieving?"

"What about?"

"_This_."

"No!"

"You are not--you are not even so