“For God’s sake don’t blackguard yourself any more,” he said.  “Give me a chance.  It’s for me to apologise to you, surely.  I knew perfectly well you meant nothing, and I ought to have had more imagination and not given you any cause to be nervous.  I frightened you, and if a woman’s frightened, of course, she’s not to be blamed for what she does, any more than a man’s to be blamed for what he does when he’s drunk.”

This, however, she would not allow.

“If I had trusted you, and known you could not do wrong, and remembered what you said when I told you about the child—­then all this would have been escaped.  And God knows I did trust you at the bottom of my heart all the time.”

She talked on and the man tired of it and, looking far ahead, perceived that his life must be shared for ever with a nature only now about to be revealed to him.  He had seen the best of her; but he had never seen the whole truth of her.  He knew she was excitable and passionate; but the excitation and passion had all been displayed for him till now.  How different when she approached other affairs of life than love, and brought her emotional characteristics to bear upon them!  A sensation of unutterable flatness overtook Raymond.  She began talking of finding a house, and was not aware that his brother had dismissed him.

He snatched an evil pleasure from telling her so.  It silenced her and made her the more oppressively submissive.  But through this announcement he won temporary release.  There came a longing to leave her, to go back to Bridport and see other faces, hear other voices and speak of other things.  They had walked homeward through the valley of the river and, at West Haven, Raymond announced that she must go the remainder of the way alone.  He salved the unexpected shock of this with a cheerful promise.

“I sleep at Bridport, to-night,” he said, “and I’ll leave you here, Sabina; but be quite happy.  I dare say Daniel will be all right.  He’s a pious blade and all that sort of thing and doesn’t understand real life.  And as some fool broke our bit of real life rather roughly on his ear, it was too much for his weak nerves.  I shan’t take you very far off anyway.  We’ll have a look round soon.  I’ll go to a house agent or somebody in a day or two.”

“You must choose,” she said.

“No, no—­that’s up to you, and you mustn’t have small ideas about it either.  You’re going to live in a jolly good house, I promise you.”

This sweetened the parting.  He kissed her and turned his face to Bridport, while she followed the road homeward.  It took her past the old store—­black as the night under a roof silvered by the moon.  A strange shiver ran through her as she passed it.  She could have prayed for time to turn back.

“Oh, my God, if I was a maiden again!” she said in a low voice to herself.

Then, growing calmer and musing of the past rather than the future, she asked herself whether in that case she would still be caring for Raymond; but she turned from such a thought and smothered the secret indignation still lying red-hot and hidden under the smoke of the things she had said to him that night.