Left to himself, he made a movement to follow her, but drew back. Let her go, to her Lovels and her secret life: he had never really held her. Let her go, to the summons which had come, and to which she had so instantly responded. He himself, from the moment Olver Lovel’s name had been pronounced, had dwindled to nullity; he had ceased, on the spot, to exist for her. All these months, she had lived with him, a stranger, away from her kind. And he recalled Mrs. Quince’s description of Olver,--“he looks like a scarecrow, that he does,”--this emissary from Nicholas Lovel to his, Calladine’s wife. Calladine strode up and down the room. She was downstairs now with Olver; what was he saying to her? What was in the future, haunted by the presence of Lovel as the past had never been? How should they ever get rid of Lovel now, standing between them? That uncomfortable presence of Lovel in the past, at which Calladine had pecked and nagged, was nothing to his dominion over the future. Surely he had been mad not to take Clare’s acquaintance with the poacher as a matter of course? mad to harass her as he had harassed her that morning? By his own folly he had created the spectre, the giant, of the situation. He strode up and down, hitting fist against palm in his vexation. Then he grew afraid; what if the poacher should not restrict his poaching to game alone? What if he should entice Clare by the occult powers with which the countryside credited him? Occult powers, or human powers, it was all one. Calladine felt his helplessness; he was weak, wordy, he could be set aside. They would set him aside, those two. He was an ill-used man. Self-pity nearly brought tears to his eyes. Life used him ill: first the woman who had fooled him, now Clare. Clare’s kindness to him had been a dalliance, while she had nothing better to do; it had evaporated at the mention of a name. He hated her, he hated Lovel, he hated the Downs and the snow. Glittering and cold, without compromise; he did not understand the Downs and the winter, but Clare and Lovel understood them. What was Olver saying to Clare? Calladine felt his life finished; and through his perfectly genuine anguish he did not fail to perceive the romantic value of his situation. He fell into a chair, and remained there with his legs extended as he gazed despondently on the floor before him. Clare would tell him nothing. He foresaw that, and his foresight was justified. She came back, immeasurably far removed from him. He wanted to ignore her return, to remain stiff with dignity, but it was not long before his curiosity weakened him. “Well, you are not very communicative. I see that you have no desire to make amends for the distress you have caused me. Was the poacher’s message, then, too sacred,--too personal,--to be imparted to me?” Clare’s eyes, when she turned them on him, were narrowed with pain. “Richard, must you ask me questions now? I have come back to you; I ask you only to leave me to myself.”