Clare passed downstairs to the hall. She moved as though her feet did not touch earth. With a fur cloak thrown round her, she opened the door and stepped out into the night, closing the door again behind her. The Downs were there, white in the starlight. Overhead, in a black sky, blazed the constellations, not yet sunk from the splendour of winter: Orion, low in the west, the splendid Plough, and Sirius, single and more brilliant than the rest. Clare passed down the dark path, swept clear of snow, to the little gate; at the gate the dark shape of a man came forward to meet her; it was Lovel. “I knew you would be here,” she said without surprise. “I have not been before,” he answered. “No,” she replied, “I knew that.” There was a little silence. “Will you come with me now?” he said. “What, out on the Downs?” she asked, trying to see his face through the darkness. “Well, we belong there, don’t we?” he said patiently. “Then what has kept us apart, I wonder?” she said. She wondered genuinely; their union seemed so large and simple. “Yes, I will come,” she added then. “I have tried not to come to you, Clare,” said Lovel. “The child is not mine, you know,” he went on. “I know; Olver told me. But what does it matter? Shall we go?” He followed her through the gate, and they took the track up on to the Downs. Three days later Calladine rode into King’s Avon, turning in at the Manor House gates at the slow walk which had been his pace for the whole three miles of his journey. He rode slackly and without interest, letting his horse stumble; even the instinctive check on the reins seemed to have deserted him. He gave his horse to William Baskett, who ran out from the stables, and, laying his gloves and crop on the bench in the hall, trod wearily into Mr. Warrener’s presence. The old man was surprised and delighted to see him. “My dear Calladine,--my dear Richard, fancy your riding over in this snowy weather,--why, I thought you scarcely stirred out of doors. And what brings you?” He peered closer. “Dear me, there’s surely nothing the matter?” “Clare has left me,” said Calladine. The phrase had been in his head for three days now. It was a relief to him to pronounce it at last aloud. “She has gone away with young Lovel.” “But I don’t understand,” said Mr. Warrener. “Left you? gone away with young Lovel? The shepherd fellow? But why? where have they gone to? what for?” Calladine raised his hands and let them fall again with a gesture of hopelessness,--the hopelessness of explaining to Mr. Warrener. Yet in a way he relished lacerating himself with the explanation.