He disengaged himself gently from Laura's clinging arms, went to the door, opened it, then shut it very quietly behind him. Laura turned away, and stared into the fire. Godfrey began, awkwardly, conciliatingly, "Now, my dear Laura----" She put up her hand. "Don't speak to me," she said, in what he felt to be a dreadful voice of aversion and of pain. "I shall never, never forgive you for this!" He shrugged his shoulders, and went out of the room, into the long corridor. And then he walked quickly through it and so to the hall of the fine old house, of which, try as he might, he never felt himself, in any intimate sense, the master. The hall was empty. Quietly he opened the front door. Yes, Gillie had kept his word this time! He really had gone. Pavely could see the alert, still young-looking figure of the man whom in his mind he always called "that scoundrel" hurrying down the carriage road which led to the great gates of The Chase. CHAPTER X Katty Winslow stood by her open gate. She had wandered out there feeling restless and excited, though she hardly knew why. During the last fortnight she had spent many lonely hours, more lonely hours than usual, for Godfrey Pavely came much less often to see her than he had done in the old, easygoing days. And yet, though restless, Katty was on the whole satisfied. She thought that things were going very much as she wished them to go. It was of course annoying to know so little, but she was able to guess a good deal, and she felt quite sure that the leaven was working. But the suspense and the uncertainty had got on her nerves, and she had made up her mind to leave Rosedean perhaps for as long as a fortnight. Two days ago she had written to various friends who were always glad to see her. That was why, as she stood at the gate, she was able to tell herself that she was waiting for the postman. She thought it very probable that Godfrey Pavely would be walking past her house about this time. A couple of days ago he had come in for about half an hour, but he had been dull and ill at ease, his mind evidently full of something he was unwilling or ashamed to tell. And she had watched him with an amused, sympathetic curiosity, wondering how long his cautious reticence would endure. If she had put her mind to it, perhaps Katty could have made him speak of that which filled his sore heart, but she felt that the time was not yet ripe for words between herself and Godfrey. She was afraid of jarring him, of making him say something to her which both of them afterwards might regret. No, not any words of love to herself--of that she was not afraid--but some dogmatic pronouncement on divorce, and perchance on re-marriage. And then, as she stood there, glancing up and down the lonely country road, she suddenly saw a man walking quickly towards her--not from Pewsbury, but from the opposite direction, which led only from The Chase.