Austen did not answer.  He felt the implication; he knew that, without realizing his difficulties, and carried on by a feeling long pent up, she had measured him unjustly, and yet he felt no resentment, and no shock.  Perhaps he might feel that later.  Now he was filled only with a sympathy that was yet another common bond between them.  Suppose she did find out?  He knew that she would not falter until she came to the end of her investigation, to the revelation of Mr. Flint’s code of business ethics.  Should the revolt take place, she would be satisfied with nothing less than the truth, even as he, Austen Vane, had not been satisfied.  And he thought of the life-long faith that would be broken thereby.

They had made the circle of the hills, and the sparkling lights of the city lay under them like blue diamond points in the twilight of the valley.  The crests behind them deepened in purple as the saffron faded in the west, and a gossamer cloud of Tyrian dye floated over Holdfast.  In silence they turned for a last lingering look, and in silence went down the slope into the world again, and through the streets to the driveway of the Duncan house.  It was only when they had stopped before the door that she trusted herself to speak.

“I ought not to have said what I did,” she began, in a low voice; “I didn’t realize—­but I cannot understand you.”

“You have said nothing which you need ever have cause to regret,” he replied.  He was too great for excuses, too great for any sorrow save what she herself might feel, as great as the silent hills from which he came.

She stood for a moment on the edge of the steps, her eyes lustrous,—­yet gazing into his with a searching, troubled look that haunted him for many days.  But her self-command was unshaken, her power to control speech was the equal of his.  And this power of silence in her revealed in such instants—­was her greatest fascination for Austen, the thing which set her apart among women; which embodied for him the whole charm and mystery of her sex.

“Good-by,” she said simply.

“Good-by,” he said, and seized her hand—­and drove away.

Without ringing the bell Victoria slipped into the hall,—­for the latch was not caught,—­and her first impulse was to run up the staircase to her room.  But she heard Mrs. Pomfret’s voice on the landing above and fled, as to a refuge, into the dark drawing-room, where she stood for a moment motionless, listening for the sound of his sleigh-bells as they fainted on the winter’s night.  Then she seated herself to think, if she could, though it is difficult to think when one’s heart is beating a little wildly.  It was Victoria’s nature to think things out.  For the first time in her life she knew sorrow, and it made it worse that that sorrow was indefinable.  She felt an accountable attraction for this man who had so strangely come into her life, whose problems had suddenly become her problems.  But she did not connect the attraction for Austen Vane with her misery.  She recalled him as he had left her, big and strong and sorrowful, with a yearning look that was undisguised, and while her faith in him came surging back again, she could not understand.