"I know little or nothing," said Challis. "But I understand that the chief point is settled. You won't play Estrild." There was no affectation of unconcern in his manner now. The two walked on together along the river-brink of Trout Bend in silence; until, leaving the river, a path, winding through scattered gorse and fern, brought them in sight of the picnic party in the shade of a great beech, the vanguard of the deep woods beyond. Then Judith stopped and said: "I suppose you are angry with me?" To which Challis replied, with vexation in his voice: "I could have forgiven you more than that." Said as a politeness this speech would have meant, "That is a mighty small matter to forgive you for." Said with a gasp, or something like it, it meant, to Judith's ears, that she had been winding that skein--this man's life, you see!--too quickly round her finger. He might become embarrassing. "You will find another Estrild," she said. An attempt at a laugh failed, and its failure was worse than its omission would have been. "I shall not try," said he. And then his evil genius saw his chance, and made Alfred Challis conceive that he could, for the release of his soul, make a false fetch of what he would have liked to say, in terms of a parallel line of thought. "I care little or nothing for the play for its own sake. My interest was in your presentation of the leading part." The words were safe, so far as they went--might have been spoken to a male actor who had taken another engagement. But he could not leave it there. That Evil Genius must needs make him go on speaking, with more and more betrayal of the great share she whom he addressed had personally in his visible chagrin. Visible in the restless movement of his hand about his face. And audible in the way he crushed his words out, cut them short on their last letter, threw them behind him: "Listen to me, and believe what I say. I count the play not worth completion now. With you the life goes out of it. It has become nothing for me." Then his voice fell, and whatever it had of petulance settled down to determination. "As for what is written of the play, I tell you plainly, I shall destroy it. At least, it shall never be acted by anyone else.... Stop one minute, and let me finish. I have not a word or a thought of blame for you, Judith Arkroyd. It was a mad idea--the whole thing! Now I see plainly that it never could have been. Let us forget it--all!"