They turned to the left, through tangled box that wound hither and thither, until they stopped at a stone wall bordering a tree-arched lane.  At the bottom of the lane was a glimpse of blue water.

Honora sat down on the wall with her back to a great trunk.  Chiltern, with a hand on the stones, leaped over lightly, and stood for some moments in the lane, his feet a little apart and firmly planted, his hands behind his back.

What had Thalia been about to allow the message of that morning to creep into her comedy? a message announcing the coming of an intruder not in the play, in the person of a husband bearing gifts.  What right had he, in the eternal essence of things, to return?  He was out of all time and place.  Such had been her feeling when she had first read the hastily written letter, but even when she had burned it it had risen again from the ashes.  Anything but that!  In trying not to think of it, she had picked up the newspaper, learned of a railroad accident,—­and shuddered.  Anything but his return!  Her marriage was a sin,—­there could be no sacrament in it.  She would flee first, and abandon all rather than submit to it.

Chiltern’s step aroused her now.  He came back to the wall where she was sitting, and faced her.

“You are sad,” he said.

She shook her head at him, slowly, and tried to smile.

“What has happened?” he demanded rudely.  “I can’t bear to see you sad.”

“I am going away,” she said.  The decision had suddenly come to her.  Why had she not seen before that it was inevitable?

He seized her wrist as it lay on the wall, and she winced from the sudden pain of his grip.

“Honora, I love you,” he said, “I must have you—­I will have you.  I will make you happy.  I promise it on my soul.  I can’t, I won’t live without you.”

She did not listen to his words—­she could not have repeated them afterwards.  The very tone of his voice was changed by passion; creation spoke through him, and she heard and thrilled and swayed and soared, forgetting heaven and earth and hell as he seized her in his arms and covered her face with kisses.  Thus Eric the Red might have wooed.  And by what grace she spoke the word that delivered her she never knew.  As suddenly as he had seized her he released her, and she stood before him with flaming cheeks and painful breath.

“I love you,” he said, “I love you.  I have searched the world for you and found you, and by all the laws of God you are mine.”

And love was written in her eyes.  He had but to read it there, though her lips might deny it.  This was the man of all men she would have chosen, and she was his by right of conquest.  Yet she held up her hand with a gesture of entreaty.

“No, Hugh—­it cannot be,” she said.

“Cannot!” he cried.  “I will take you.  You love me.”

“I am married.”

“Married!  Do you mean that you would let that man stand between you and happiness?”