"SHE counts."

Ah! He was not going to say: She doesn't! It would be caddish to say
that. Even if she didn't count--Did she still?--it would be mean and
low. And in his eyes just then there was the look that had made his
tutor compare him to a lion cub in trouble.

Sylvia was touching his arm.

"Mark!"

"Yes."

"Don't!"

He got up and took his rod. What was the use? He could not stay there
with her, since he could not--must not speak.

"Are you going?"

"Yes."

"Are you angry? PLEASE don't be angry with me."

He felt a choke in his throat, bent down to her hand, and kissed it;
then shouldered his rod, and marched away. Looking back once, he saw her
still sitting there, gazing after him, forlorn, by that great stone. It
seemed to him, then, there was nowhere he could go; nowhere except among
the birds and beasts and trees, who did not mind even if you were all
mixed up and horrible inside. He lay down in the grass on the bank. He
could see the tiny trout moving round and round the stones; swallows
came all about him, flying very low; a hornet, too, bore him company for
a little. But he could take interest in nothing; it was as if his spirit
were in prison. It would have been nice, indeed, to be that water, never
staying, passing, passing; or wind, touching everything, never caught.
To be able to do nothing without hurting someone--that was what was so
ghastly. If only one were like a flower, that just sprang up and lived
its life all to itself, and died. But whatever he did, or said now,
would be like telling lies, or else being cruel. The only thing was to
keep away from people. And yet how keep away from his own guests?

He went back to the house for lunch, but both those guests were out, no
one seemed quite to know where. Restless, unhappy, puzzled, he wandered
round and about all the afternoon. Just before dinner he was told of
Mrs. Stormer's not being well, and that they would be leaving to-morrow.
Going--after three days! That plunged him deeper into his strange and
sorrowful confusion. He was reduced now to a complete brooding silence.
He knew he was attracting attention, but could not help it. Several
times during dinner he caught Gordy's eyes fixed on him, from under
those puffy half-closed lids, with asphyxiated speculation. But he
simply COULD not talk--everything that came into his mind to say
seemed false. Ah! it was a sad evening--with its glimmering vision into
another's sore heart, its c