“You heard about it all—­from Radowitz?”

She nodded.

“He came here that same night.”  And then suddenly, in the golden light, he saw her flush vividly.  Had she realised that what she had said implied a good deal?—­or might be thought to imply it?  Why should Radowitz take the trouble, after his long and exhausting experience, to come round by the Scarfedale manor-house?

“It was an awful time for him,” he said, his eyes on hers.  “It was very strange that he should be there.”

She hesitated.  Her lips trembled.

“He was very glad to be there.  Only he was sorry—­for you.”

“You mean he was sorry that I wasn’t there sooner—­with my father?”

“I think that was what he felt—­that there was only a stranger.”

“I was just in time,” said Falloden slowly.  “And I wonder—­whether anything matters, to the dying?”

There was a pause, after which he added, with sudden energy—­

“I thought—­at the inquest—­he himself looked pretty bad.”

“Otto Radowitz?” Constance covered her eyes with her hands a moment—­a gesture of pain.  “Mr. Sorell doesn’t know what to do for him.  He has been losing ground lately.  The doctors say he ought to live in the open-air.  He and Mr. Sorell talk of a cottage near Oxford, where Mr. Sorell can go often and see him.  But he can’t live alone.”

As she spoke Falloden’s attention was diverted.  He had raised his head and was looking across the lawn towards the garden entrance.  There was the sound of a clicking latch.  Constance turned, and saw Radowitz entering.

The young musician paused and wavered, at the sight of the two under the lime.  It seemed as though he would have taken to flight.  But, instead, he came on with hesitating step.  He had taken off his hat, as he often did when walking; and his red-gold hair en brosse was as conspicuous as ever.  But otherwise what a change from the youth of three months before!  Falloden, now that the immediate pressure of his own tragedy was relaxed, perceived the change even more sharply than he had done at the inquest; perceived it, at first with horror, and then with a wild sense of recoil and denial, as though some hovering Erinys advanced with Radowitz over the leaf-strewn grass.

Radowitz grew paler still as he reached Connie.  He gave Falloden a short, embarrassed greeting, and then subsided into the chair that Constance offered him.  The thought crossed Falloden’s mind—­“Did she arrange this?”

Her face gave little clue—­though she could not restrain one quick, hesitating glance at Falloden.  She pressed tea on Radowitz, who accepted it to please her, and then, schooled as she was in all the minor social arts, she had soon succeeded in establishing a sort of small talk among the three.  Falloden, self-conscious, and on the rack, could not imagine why he stayed.  But this languid boy had ministered to his dying father!  And to what, and to whom, were the languor, the tragic physical change due?  He stayed—­in purgatory—­looking out for any chance to escape.