that it was Louise again
who was the responsible person during these months. Hilda's reply was
delayed, nor had she written immediately. When he got it, it was brief
but to the point. She did not doubt, she said, but that what he had
written was strictly true, and she did not doubt his honour. But he must
see that their relationship was impossible. She couldn't marry the man
who appeared actually to like the company of such a woman, nor could she
do other than feel that the end would seem to him as plain as it did to
her, and that he would leave the Church, or at any rate such a ministry
in it as she could share. She had told her people that she was no longer
engaged in order that he should feel free, but she would ever remember
the man as she had known him, whom she had loved, and whom she loved
still.

It was in the afternoon that Peter got the letter, and he was just
setting off for the hospital. When he had read it, he put on his cap and
set off in the opposite direction. There was a walk along the sea-wall a
few feet wide, where the wind blew strongly laden with the Channel
breezes, and on the other side was a waste of sand and stone. In some
places water was on both sides of the wall, and here one could feel more
alone than anywhere else in the town.

Peter set off, his head in a mad whirl. He had felt that such a letter
would come for weeks, but that did not, in a way, lessen the blow when it
came. He had known, too, that Hilda was not to him what she had been, but
he had not altogether felt that she never could be so again. Now he knew
that he had gone too far to turn back. He felt, he could not help it,
released in a sense, with almost a sense of exhilaration behind it, for
the unknown lay before. And yet, since we are all so human, he was
intensely unhappy below all this. He called to mind little scenes and
bits of scenes: their first meeting; the sight of her in church as he
preached; how she had looked at the dining-table in Park Lane; her walk
as she came to meet him in the park. And he knew well enough how he had
hurt her, and the thought maddened him. He told himself that God was a
devil to treat him so; that he had tried to follow the right; and that
the way had led him down towards nothing but despair. He was no nearer
answering the problems that beset him. He might have been in a fool's
paradise before, but what was the use of coming out to see the devil as
he was and men and women as they were if he