was certain that it was Dion who had come into the garden. Perhaps
Robin was with him, perhaps they were going to give her a surprise.
She waited for an instant. Something within her was hesitating. She
conquered it, not without an effort, and went round the angle of the
path. Beyond the shrubs, but not far from them, a man was standing. It
was Dion. He was alone. It was so dark that Rosamund could not see him
clearly, but she noticed at once that the outline of his figure looked
strange. His body seemed to be all awry as if he were standing in an
unnatural position. She stopped and stared at this body.

"Is anything wrong, Dion?" she asked. "What's the matter? Why do you
stand like that?"

After her last quick question she heard a long-drawn quivering breath.

"Where's Robin?" she said sharply.

He did not answer. She meant to go up to him; but she did not move.

"Why are you so late? Where's Robin?" he repeated.

"Rosamund--"

"Don't move! Stand there, and tell me what it is."

"Haven't I--always tried to make you happy?"

The words came from the body before her, but she did not know the voice.
It was Dion's voice, of course. It must be that. But she had never heard
it before.

"Don't come nearer to me. What have you done?"

"Robin--I have--I have--Robin--my gun----"

The voice failed in the darkness. Rosamund shut her eyes. She had seen
an angry hand tear down a branch of wild olive. Suddenly she knew. It
seemed to her that ever since that day long ago in Elis some part of her
had always prophetically known that Dion was fated to bring terror and
ruin into her life. This was not true, but now she felt it to be true.

"You've killed Robin," she said, quietly and coldly.

Her brain and heart seemed to stand still, like things staring into an
immense voice. They had come to the end of their road.

"You've killed Robin," she said again.

"Rosamund----"

The body in front of her moved to come towards her. Then she uttered the
fearful cry which was heard by Mr. Darlington on his way home from the
Deanery, and she fled from the body which had slain Robin.

That purely instinctive action was the beginning of Dion's punishment.
A cry, the movement of a body, and everything which meant life to him,
everything for which he had lived, was gone. But he followed Rosamund
with a sort of blind obstinacy, driven as she was by instinct. Dimly he
knew that he was a man who only merited compassion, all the compassi