yed for him till now. How
different when she approached other affairs of life than love, and
brought her emotional characteristics to bear upon them! A sensation of
unutterable flatness overtook Raymond. She began talking of finding a
house, and was not aware that his brother had dismissed him.

He snatched an evil pleasure from telling her so. It silenced her and
made her the more oppressively submissive. But through this announcement
he won temporary release. There came a longing to leave her, to go back
to Bridport and see other faces, hear other voices and speak of other
things. They had walked homeward through the valley of the river and, at
West Haven, Raymond announced that she must go the remainder of the way
alone. He salved the unexpected shock of this with a cheerful promise.

"I sleep at Bridport, to-night," he said, "and I'll leave you here,
Sabina; but be quite happy. I dare say Daniel will be all right. He's a
pious blade and all that sort of thing and doesn't understand real life.
And as some fool broke our bit of real life rather roughly on his ear,
it was too much for his weak nerves. I shan't take you very far off
anyway. We'll have a look round soon. I'll go to a house agent or
somebody in a day or two."

"You must choose," she said.

"No, no--that's up to you, and you mustn't have small ideas about it
either. You're going to live in a jolly good house, I promise you."

This sweetened the parting. He kissed her and turned his face to
Bridport, while she followed the road homeward. It took her past the old
store--black as the night under a roof silvered by the moon. A strange
shiver ran through her as she passed it. She could have prayed for time
to turn back.

"Oh, my God, if I was a maiden again!" she said in a low voice to
herself.

Then, growing calmer and musing of the past rather than the future, she
asked herself whether in that case she would still be caring for
Raymond; but she turned from such a thought and smothered the secret
indignation still lying red-hot and hidden under the smoke of the things
she had said to him that night.

On his way to Bridport, the man also reflected, but of the future, not
the past.

"I must be cruel to be kind," he told himself. What he exactly meant by
the assurance, he hardly knew. But, in some way, it assisted
self-respect and promised a course of action likely to justify his
coming life.

CHAPTER XIX

JOB LEGG'S AMBITION

A disquieti