As if God had spoken and stilled his inarticulate protest, the futile agony of his striving died down.  He began to be conscious vaguely that somewhere within his reach there lay a way of escape.  He stared out over the silver-blue of the sea with strained and throbbing vision.  The sun had gone down behind High Shale, and the quiet shadows stretched towards him.  He had the feeling of a hunted man who has found sanctuary.  Again, more calmly, his tired brain considered the problem that had driven him forth in such bitterness of soul.

There was Dicky—­Dicky who loved him—­whom he worshipped.  Yes, certainly Dicky loved him.  He had never questioned that.  He was the only person in the world who had ever wanted him.  But a deeper love, a deeper want, had entered Dicky’s life with the coming of Juliet.  He wanted her with a great heart-longing that Robin but dimly comprehended but of which he was keenly conscious, made wise by the sympathy that linked them.  He knew—­and this without any bitterness—­that Dicky wanted Juliet as he had never wanted him.  It was an overmastering yearning in Dicky’s soul, and somehow—­by some means—­some sacrifice—­it must be satisfied.  Even Dicky, it seemed, would have to sacrifice something; for he could not have them both.

Yes, something would have to be sacrificed.  Somehow this obstacle must be cleared out of Dicky’s path.  Juliet could not come to Dicky while he was there.  He did not ask himself why this should be, but accepted it as fact.  He then was the main obstacle to Dicky’s happiness, to the fulfilment of his great desire.  Then he must go.  But whither?  And leave Dicky—­and leave Dicky!

Again for a spell the anguish woke within him, but it did not possess him so overwhelmingly as before.  He had begun to seek for a way out, and though it was hard to find, the very act of seeking brought him comfort.  His own misery no longer occupied the forefront of his poor groping brain.

He sat for a long, long time up there on the cliff while the shadows lengthened and the day slowly died, turning the matter over and over while the flame of sacrifice gradually kindled in the darkness of his soul.

It was probably the growth of many hours of not too coherent meditation—­the solution of that problem; but it came upon him very suddenly at the last, almost like the swift wheeling of a flashlight over the calm night sea.

He had heard the church clock strike in the distance, and was turning to leave when that first vision of Juliet swooped back upon him—­Juliet in her light linen dress springing up the path towards him.  He saw her as she had stood there, leaving the path behind her, poised like a young goddess against the dazzling blue of the spring sky.  Her face had been stern at first, but all the sternness had gone into an amazing kindness of compassion when her look had lighted upon him.  She had not shrunk from him as shrank so many.  And then—­and then—­he remembered the sudden fear, the sharp anxiety, that had succeeded that first look of pity.