One day he said to her: “Well, the book’s finished.” He spoke in a low apprehensive voice, as if he had been putting off the announcement as long as possible, and now that it was made, did not know what to say next.

Since the night, weeks before, when Halo had ventured her criticism he had never again proposed to show her what he was doing, never even asked her to take his dictation or to copy out his manuscript; he had definitely excluded the subject of “Colossus” from their talks. The intellectual divorce between them was increasingly bitter to Halo. That the veil of passion must wear through was life’s unescapable lesson; but if no deeper understanding underlay it, what was left? Had not Frenside’s advice been the only answer? In the joy of Vance’s return, and the peaceful communion of their first days, when the mere fact of being together seemed to settle every doubt and lay every ghost, it had been easy to smile at her old friend’s suggestion, and to reflect how little any one could know of lovers’ hearts except the lovers. But now she understood on what unstable ground she had rebuilt her happiness, and trembled.

Vance stood in the window looking out over the bay. The palms were wrestling in dishevelled fury with the first autumn gale; rain striped the panes, and beyond the headlands a welter of green waters stretched away to the low pall of clouds. Halo saw him give a discouraged shrug. “Good Lord — Miss Plummet!”

The Pension Britannique had reopened its shutters the previous week, and after a prelude of carpet-shaking and tile-scrubbing Madame Fleuret’s lodgers were taking possession of their old quarters. The Anglican chapel was to resume its offices on the following Sunday; already Halo had encountered Mrs. Dorman, cordial though embarrassed, and eager to tell her that after the first rains a bad leak had shown itself in Lady Dayes–Dawes’s room, and that the mason was afraid they would have to rebuild the chimney of the lounge.

Halo stood by Vance watching Miss Plummet swept homeward by the south-easterly blast, her umbrella bellying like a black sail. After she had passed there was an interval during which the promenade remained empty, like a stage-setting before the leading actor’s entrance; then, punctually as of old, Colonel Churley stalked into view, his mackintosh flapping, his stick dragging in the mud, his head thrust out angrily to meet the gale. Vance followed his struggling figure with fascinated eyes. “I suppose they all think they’re alive!” he groaned.

Halo laid her arm on his shoulder. She knew what thoughts the sight of Colonel Churley had stirred in him. “Why should we stay here any longer?” she said.

Vance drummed on the pane without answering. His eyes still followed the bent figure lessening between the palm-trunks.

“Now that your book’s finished — ”

“Oh, my book! I don’t believe it is a book — just a big dump of words. And not mine, anyhow; you’ve made that clear enough!” He gave an irritated laugh.

“I have? But you only let me hear a few chapters.”

“Exactly. And on those you gave me your judgment of the finished book. Without a moment’s hesitation. Look here, child,” he added abruptly, “don’t think I was surprised, or that I minded. Not in the least. It’s the sign of the amateur critic that he must always conclude, never leave an opinion in solution.”

Halo’s arm dropped from his shoulder. “Then it can’t much matter to the author what the conclusion is.”

Vance stood uneasily shifting from one foot to the other, his eyes bent to the ground. “If only it didn’t matter! The devil of it is that when a book’s growing the merest stupidest hint may deflect its growth, deform it . . . The artist loses confidence, ceases to visualize . . . Oh, what’s the use of trying to explain?”

“Don’t try, dear. You’re too tired, for one thing.”

“Tired — tired? When a man’s at the end of his tether a woman always thinks he’s tired. Why don’t you suggest a bottle of tonic?”

“If you’re at the end of your tether it would be more to the point to suggest new pastures. Why shouldn’t we try some other place?”

He moved away and began his restless pacing; then he came back and paused before her. “It’s the landscape of the soul I’m fed up with,” he broke out.

She stood silent. The landscape of the soul! But that must mean his nearest surroundings — must mean herself, she supposed. She tried to steady the smile on her trembling lips. “I wish you’d let me help you as I used to,” she began. “But if I’m of no use to you in your work, and only in the way at other times, perhaps . . .” She felt a blur in her eyes, and hurried on. “Perhaps the real change you need — ” and now she achieved a little laugh — “is not a new place but a new woman.”

The words dropped into a profound silence. Was he never going to speak, to deny, to protest at the monstrousness of her suggestion? He stood in the window, looking out into the rain, for a time that seemed to her interminable; and when he turned back his face was expressionless, closed. She felt as if a door had been shut against her. She essayed her little laugh again. “Is that it? Don’t be afraid to tell me!”

“That?” He looked at her vaguely. “Oh — another woman?” He stopped, and then began, in a hard embarrassed voice: “I suppose you put that newspaper cutting on my desk on purpose the night I came back? You wanted me to understand that you knew?”

She returned his look in genuine bewilderment. The weeks since his return had been crowded with so many emotions and agitations that for the moment she had forgotten the paragraph in which Floss Delaney figured. Suddenly the memory rushed back on her, and she stood speechless. It was that, then — her first instinct had been right, had led her straight to his secret! She stiffened herself, trying to thrust back the intolerable truth. “What cutting? You mean — about that girl?”

“Yes; that girl.”

“Oh, Vance . . . you don’t . . . you don’t mean that it’s for her . . .?” There was another silence. “You mean that when you left London it was to go away with her?”

He gave an angry laugh. “It was to go away FROM her — as far as I could go! Now do you understand?”

Halo’s eyes clung to his labouring face. Did she understand — dare............