“Not that, Blanche ... not that!” said a voice he hardly recognised as his own, and, wheeling, he went heavily through the little dead gardens.  Blanche, sick with disappointment, noted dully that he never turned his head as he passed out of the last.  A sob rose to her throat, and as she heard the choking sound she made, the swift thought came:  “That sounded real!  I must be broken-hearted to sob like that....”; and she sobbed again.  Then a flash of self-revelation ran over her, and she stood aghast.

“Nothing is real about me, nothing!” she cried despairingly, “not even my sorrow at being so unreal.”  Drying her eyes, she stared out at the pale gleam of the Atlantic glinting through the elders and began to think.  She saw love, such love as she was capable of, had been ruled out of life for her; it became all the more necessary that she should capture other things that made life pleasant.  If she let this new phase of sincerity become a habit, she was lost indeed; better to slip into the old self-deceiving Blanche once again.  Deliberately she shut off thoughts of Ishmael, and barred them out until such time as she could think of him, without effort, from a point of view that in no way lowered her self-esteem.  She had been artificial in her strivings after sincerity; now, for the last time, she was real in her acceptance of unreality.  Lightly dabbing her eyelids with a pocket powder-puff, she went back to the cottage.

There she read through the letter again, then consulted a time-table; she could change at Exeter and catch a train that would enable her to reach home that evening.  She could make up a story to her stepmother to account for her sudden appearance.  Blanche began composing in her mind what she would say to her.  She would pretend not to have had the letter; even her gentle, garrulous little stepmother’s good opinion was dear to her.  She would seal it up again and forward it on herself; it would reach her at home a day after her own arrival.  Yes, thought Blanche, everything would dovetail excellently.  She went into the kitchen where Mrs. Penticost was ironing and the pleasant smell of warm linen hung upon the air.

“I’ve decided I must go home, Mrs. Penticost,” she said.  “That letter was to say my father is very ill, and I was only waiting till I’d seen Mr. Ruan....  I’ve told him I must go to-morrow.  I’m so sorry, but—­”

“Ah!” interrupted Mrs. Penticost; “’tes as well—­’twould be dull for ’ee alone wi’out Mr. Ruan able to come so much about the place, and I wouldn’ have had en here with Miss Judy gone and you alone.  You was rare taken up wi’ he!”

Blanche’s vanity was too insatiable to spare Ishmael; she sighed pathetically.

“Oh, Mrs. Penticost! you make me feel horribly guilty, for I’m afraid it’s all over,” she said with simple earnestness, “but I couldn’t prevent it; and poor Mr. Ruan—­”

“Don’t ’ee go for to tell I about it!” broke in Mrs. Penticost; “’tes downright ondecent in ’ee!”