Breakfast at the vicarage was not a genial meal.  Val was anxious and preoccupied, Isabel in eclipse, even Mr. Stafford out of humour—­vexed with Lawrence, and with Val for bringing Lawrence in under the immunities of a guest.  Lawrence himself was in a frozen mood.  As soon as they had finished he rose:  “If you’ll excuse my rushing off I’ll go down to Wanhope now.”

“By all means,” said Mr. Stafford drily.

“Good-bye,” said Isabel, casting about for a form of consolation, and evolving one which, in the circumstances, was possibly unique:  “You’ll feel better when you’ve had a bath.”

“I’ll walk down with you to Wanhope” said Val.

“You?  Oh! no, don’t bother,” said Lawrence very curtly.  “I can manage my cousin, thanks.”

But Val’s only reply was to open the door for him and stroll with him across the lawn.  At the wicket gate Hyde turned:  “Excuse my saying so, but I prefer to go alone.”

“I’m not coming in at Wanhope.  But I’ve ten words to say to you before you go there.”

“Oh?” said Lawrence.  He swung through leaving Val to follow or not as he liked.

“Stop, Hyde, you must listen.  You’re going into a house full of the materials for an explosion.  You don’t know your own danger.”

“I dislike hints.  What are you driving at?”

“Laura.”

“Mrs. Clowes?”

“Naturally,” said Val with a faint smile.  “You know as well as I do how pointless that correction is.  You imply by it that as I’m not her brother I’ve no right to meddle.  But I told you in June that I should interfere if it became necessary to protect others.”

“And since when, my dear Val, has it become necessary?  Last night?”

“Well, not that only:  all Chilmark has been talking for weeks and weeks.”

“Chilmark—­”

“Oh,” Val interrupted, flinging out his delicate hands, “what’s the good of that?  Who would ever suggest that you care what Chilmark says?  But she has to live in it.”

The scene had to be faced, and a secret vein of cruelty in Lawrence was not averse from facing it.  This storm had been brewing all summer.—­They were alone, for the beechen way was used only as a short cut to the vicarage.  Above them the garden wall lifted its feathery fringe of grass into great golden boughs that drooped over it:  all round them the beech forest ran down into the valley, the eye losing itself among clear glades at the end of which perhaps a thicket of hollies twinkled darkly or a marbled gleam of blue shone in from overhead; the steep dark path was illumined by the golden lamplight of millions on millions of pointed leaves, hanging motionless in the sunny autumnal morning air which smelt of dry moss and wood smoke.

“And what’s the rumour?  That I’m going to prevail or that I’ve prevailed already?”