"Poor old devil!" he said. "He'll have to put a special clause in the
general confession next Sunday. Poor old devil! And poor little Betty!
And poorest me! Because, however, we look at it, and however we may
have damn well bluffed over it, the game _is_ up--absolutely up."

When one has a definite end in view--marriage, let us say, or an
elopement,--secret correspondences, the surmounting of garden walls,
the bribery of servants, are in the picture. But in a small sweet
idyll, with no backbone of intention to it, these things are
inartistic. And Vernon was, above and before all, an artist. He must
go away and he knew it. And his picture was not finished. Could he
possibly leave that incomplete? The thought pricked sharply. He had
not made much progress with the picture in these last days. It had
been pleasanter to work at the portrait of Betty. If he moved to the
next village? Yes, that must be thought over.

He spent the day thinking of that and of other things.

The Reverend Cecil Underwood stood where he was left till the man he
had struck had passed out of sight. Then the cane slipped through his
hand and fell rattling to the ground. He looked down at it curiously.
Then he reached out both hands vaguely and touched the shaft of the
plough. He felt his way along it, and sat down, where they had sat,
staring dully before him at the shadows in the shed, and at the steady
fall of the rain outside. Betty's mackintosh was lying on the floor.
He picked it up presently and smoothed out the creases. Then he
watched the rain again.

An hour had passed before he got stiffly up and went home, with her