Mrs Bridgenorth.  If you wish, certainly.

Reginald.  But the men want to hear what you have to say too.

Mrs George.  I’ll talk to them afterwards:  one by one.

Hotchkiss [to himself] Great heavens!

Mrs Bridgenorth.  This way, Mrs Collins. [She leads the way out through the tower, followed by Mrs George, Lesbia, Leo, and Edith].

The bishop.  Shall we try to get through the last batch of letters whilst they are away, Soames?

Soames.  Yes, certainly. [To Hotchkiss, who is in his way] Excuse me.

The Bishop and Soames go into the study, disturbing Hotchkiss, who, plunged in a strange reverie, has forgotten where he is.  Awakened by Soames, he stares distractedly; then, with sudden resolution, goes swiftly to the middle of the kitchen.

Hotchkiss.  Cecil.  Rejjy. [Startled by his urgency, they hurry to him].  I’m frightfully sorry to desert on this day; but I must bolt.  This time it really is pure cowardice.  I cant help it.

Reginald.  What are you afraid of?

Hotchkiss.  I dont know.  Listen to me.  I was a young fool living by myself in London.  I ordered my first ton of coals from that woman’s husband.  At that time I did not know that it is not true economy to buy the lowest priced article:  I thought all coals were alike, and tried the thirteen shilling kind because it seemed cheap.  It proved unexpectedly inferior to the family Silkstone; and in the irritation into which the first scuttle threw me, I called at the shop and made an idiot of myself as she described.

Sykes.  Well, suppose you did!  Laugh at it, man.

Hotchkiss.  At that, yes.  But there was something worse.  Judge of my horror when, calling on the coal merchant to make a trifling complaint at finding my grate acting as a battery of quick-firing guns, and being confronted by his vulgar wife, I felt in her presence an extraordinary sensation of unrest, of emotion, of unsatisfied need.  I’ll not disgust you with details of the madness and folly that followed that meeting.  But it went as far as this:  that I actually found myself prowling past the shop at night under a sort of desperate necessity to be near some place where she had been.  A hideous temptation to kiss the doorstep because her foot had pressed it made me realize how mad I was.  I tore myself away from London by a supreme effort; but I was on the point of returning like a needle to the lodestone when the outbreak of the war saved me.  On the field of battle the infatuation wore off.  The Billiter affair made a new man of me:  I felt that I had left the follies and puerilities of the old days behind me for ever.  But half-an-hour ago—­when the Bishop sent off that ring—­a sudden grip at the base of my heart filled me with a nameless terror—­me, the fearless!  I recognized its cause when she walked into the room.  Cecil:  this woman is a harpy, a siren, a mermaid, a vampire.  There is only one chance for me:  flight, instant precipitate flight.  Make my excuses.  Forget me.  Farewell. [He makes for the door and is confronted by Mrs George entering].  Too late:  I’m lost. [He turns back and throws himself desperately into the chair nearest the study door; that being the furthest away from her].