* * * * *

A tender green transparent as the light seen through a leaf in May was
welling up the sky. Two tiny clouds floated in it like rafts of rose
colour upon a sea of glass.

* * * * *

A deep and bitter sense of injustice was growing within him with the
growing light.

A hundred times during the night he had recalled in cold anger every
word of that final scene in the library, his own speech, his own
actions, his great wrongs, his unendurable pain.

And yet again it returned upon him, always with Fay's convulsed face,
and clinging hands, always with the Bishop's scathing words of
dismissal. Their horrible injustice rankled in his mind, their
abominable cruelty to himself revolted him. Hideous crimes had been
committed against him, but _he_ had done no evil, unless to love and to
trust were evil. Why then was he to be thus thrust into the wrong, thus
condemned unheard, cast forth with scorn because he had not obediently
fallen in with the Bishop's preposterous demand on him to condone
everything? _It was not to be expected of him._

Suddenly the faces of the others watching him after Fay's confession
rose before him, the Bishop's, Magdalen's, Michael's. He saw that they
had not expected it of him either--not even Michael. Only in Fay's
up-raised eyes as she held him by the knees had there been one instant's
anguished hope. Only in hers. And that had been quickly extinguished.
_He had extinguished it himself._

* * * * *

The little clouds turned to trembling flame. The whole sky flushed and
then paled. A thread of fire showed upon the horizon. It widened. It
drew into an arch. The sun rose swiftly, a sudden ball of living fire;
and in a moment the smallest shrub upon the down, the grazing horses,
the huddled sheep, were casting gigantic shadows across the whole world.

A faint sound of wheels was growing clearer and nearer.

Wentworth saw a dog-cart coming towards him along the great white road.
As he looked it pulled up and then stopped. A man got out and came
towards him. The raw sunlight caught only his face and shoulders. He
seemed to wade towards him waist deep through a grey sea.

Lord Lossiemouth again!

Lord Lossiemouth's heavy tired face showed sharp and white in the garish
light.

"I have been looking everywhere for you," he said, not ungently. "I
waited half the night at Barford, and then went o