Meanwhile John strode across the country to Fanshawe to bid the old squire and his old wife good-bye. He went, as the crow flies, over the stubble, and by the hedge-sides, never pausing to draw breath. Not because he was excited by his departure, or by the letter in his pocket, or by any actual incident. On the contrary, he was quite still, like the day, which was a grey autumn morning, with wistful scraps of blue on the horizon, and a brooding, pondering quiet in the air. All is over for the year, nature was saying to herself. Shall there be another year? shall old earth begin again, take in the new seeds, keep the spring germs alive for another blossoming? or shall all come to a conclusion at last, and the new heavens and the new earth come down out of those rolling clouds and fathomless shrill breaks of blue? John was in much the same mood. Kate’s little note in his pocket had a kind of promise in it of the new earth and the new heaven. But was it a solid, real promise, or only a dissolving view, that would vanish as he approached it? and might not an end be better, and no more delusive hopes? Mrs Fanshawe was very kind when he got to the hall. She told him of poor Cecily, just nineteen (Kate’s age), who was dying at Nice, and cried a little, and smiled, and said, “Oh, my dear boy, it don’t matter for us; we can’t be long of going after her.” But though she was reconciled to that, she made a little outcry over John’s leave-taking. “Going so soon! and what will your poor mother say?” cried the old lady. “I am afraid you think more of one smile from Miss Crediton than of all your old friends; and I suppose it is natural,” she added, as she shook hands with him. Did he care more for Kate’s smile than for anything else? He walked home again in the same dead sort of way, without being able to answer even such a question. He did not care for anything, he thought, except, now that he was at Fanshawe, to get away; and probably when he got to Camelford his desire would be to get back again, or to Fernwood, or to anywhere, except just the place where he happened to be.