er neck--Irene! On across the
lawn he went, up the slope, to the oak-tree. Its top alone was
glistening, for the sudden sun was away over the house; the lower shade
was thick, blessedly cool--he was greatly overheated. He paused a minute
with his hand on the rope of the swing--Jolly, Holly--Jon! The old
swing! And suddenly, he felt horribly--deadly ill. 'I've over done it!'
he thought: 'by Jove! I've overdone it--after all!' He staggered up
toward the terrace, dragged himself up the steps, and fell against the
wall of the house. He leaned there gasping, his face buried in the
honey-suckle that he and she had taken such trouble with that it might
sweeten the air which drifted in. Its fragrance mingled with awful pain.
'My love!' he thought; 'the boy!' And with a great effort he tottered in
through the long window, and sank into old Jolyon's chair. The book was
there, a pencil in it; he caught it up, scribbled a word on the open
page.... His hand dropped.... So it was like this--was it?...

There was a great wrench; and darkness....

III

IRENE

When Jon rushed away with the letter in his hand, he ran along the
terrace and round the corner of the house, in fear and confusion. Leaning
against the creepered wall he tore open the letter. It was long--very
long! This added to his fear, and he began reading. When he came to the
words: "It was Fleur's father that she married," everything seemed to
spin before him. He was close to a window, and entering by it, he
passed, through music-room and hall, up to his bedroom. Dipping his face
in cold water, he sat on his bed, and went on reading, dropping each
finished page on the bed beside him. His father's writing was easy to
read--he knew it so well, though he had never had a letter from him one
quarter so long. He read with a dull feeling--imagination only half at
work. He best grasped, on that first reading, the pain his father must
have had in writing such a letter. He let the last sheet fall, and in a
sort of mental, moral helplessness began to read the first again. It all
seemed to him disgusting--dead and disgusting. Then, suddenly, a hot
wave of horrified emotion tingled through him. He buried his face in his
hands. His mother! Fleur's father! He took up the letter again, and
read on mechanically. And again came the feeling that it was all dead
and disgusting; his own love so different! This letter said his
mother--and her father! An a