for breakfast that she heard the news, and this was perhaps a mercy; for
the effort she had to make to keep from betraying herself rallied her
forces and prevented a rout.

To the others his having gone like that seemed natural enough,--likably
characteristic of him, at any rate. In his note to Miss Wollaston he had
merely said that he realized that he must be off and wished to make the
most of the cool of the morning. He hoped she would understand and pardon
his not having spoken of his intention last night.

"It's the crush Sylvia had on him that accounts for that," Graham
observed. "He was afraid of the row she'd make if he let on."

Sylvia's riposte to this was the speculation that Mary had scared him
away, but one could see that her brother's explanation pleased her.

"Anyhow," she concluded, "he was good while he lasted."

What held Mary together was the obvious fact that none of them saw--no
more than they had seen--anything. Not one curious or questioning glance
was turned her way. A sense she was not until later able to find words
for, that she was guarding something, his quite as much as her own, from
profaning eyes, gave her the resolution it needed to carry on like that
until she could be alone. Naturally,--or at all events plausibly--alone.
She wouldn't run away from anybody.

Toward eleven o'clock chance befriended her. She hid herself in the old
orchard, lay prone upon the warm grass, her cheek upon her folded
forearms, and let herself go. She did not cry even now. Grief was not
what she felt, still less resentment.

She was lonely as she had never been before, and frightened by her
loneliness. All the familiar things of her life seemed far away, unreal.
She wanted a hand to hold;--his--oh, one of his!--until she could find
her way into a path again.

She had known, she reflected,--somewhere in the depths of her she had
known--from the first moment of their meeting, that he would go away.
This was why she had been so careful not to look beyond the moments as
they came; not to tempt Nemesis by asking nor trying for too much.

There happened to be, rather uncannily, a genuine proof that this was
true. While she had been still dazed with that first look of his, there
in the oak shade at the edge of the field, she had said that it was like
the first act of _Le Chemineau_. That had been speaking all but with the
tongue of prophecy. Deeply as the story had impressed her when she heard
it, she had spok