Of course, she had seen him with Alicia, and must have drawn her conclusions.  Four months after the breach with her!—­and such a breach!  As he walked beside her through the radiant scented garden, with its massed roses and delphiniums, its tangle of poppy and lupin, he suddenly beheld himself as a kind of outcast—­distrusted and disliked by an old friend like Chide, separated forever from the good opinion of this girl whom he had loved, suspected even by his mother, and finally crushed by this unexpected tragedy, and by the shock of Barrington’s unpardonable behavior.

Then his whole being reacted in a fierce protesting irritation.  He had been the victim of circumstance as much as she.  His will hardened to a passionate self-defence; he flung off, he held at bay, an anguish that must and should be conquered.  He had to live his life.  He would live it.

They passed into the orchard, where, amid the old trees, covered with tiny green apples, some climbing roses were running at will, hanging their trails of blossom, crimson and pale pink, from branch to branch.  Linnets and blackbirds made a pleasant chatter; the grass beneath the trees was rich and soft, and through their tops, one saw white clouds hovering in a blazing blue.

Diana turned suddenly toward the house.

“I think we may go back now,” she said, and her hand contracted and her lip, as though she realized that her dear dead friend had left her roof forever.

They hurried back, but there was still time for conversation.

“You knew him, of course, from a child?” she said to him, glancing at him with timid interrogation.

In reply he forced himself to play that part of Ferrier’s intimate—­almost son—­which, indeed, she had given him, by implication, throughout her own talk.  In this she had shown a tact, a kindness for which he owed her gratitude.  She must have heard the charges brought against him by the Ferrier party during the election, yet, noble creature that she was, she had not believed them.  He could have thanked her aloud, till he remembered that marked newspaper in his pocket.

Once a straggling rose branch caught in her dress.  He stooped to free it.  Then for the first time he saw her shrink.  The instinctive service had made them man and woman again—­not mind and mind; and he perceived, with a miserable throb, that she could not be so unconscious of his identity, his presence, their past, as she had seemed to be.

She had lost—­he realized it—­the bloom of first youth.  How thin was the hand which gathered up her dress!—­the hand once covered with his kisses.  Yet she seemed to him lovelier than ever, and he divined her more woman than ever, more instinct with feeling, life, and passion.

* * * * *

Sir James’s messenger met them half-way.  At the door the ambulance waited.

Chide, bareheaded, and a group of doctors, gardeners, and police stood beside it.