What should he do? Go straightway to her, and tell her that he had been deceived; that if her marriage was indeed legal, his love was hopeless. Yes, he would do that. Anything would be better than to hazard being scorned by her. He would go to her, and tell her the bitter truth, so far as the one fact that her husband was alive. The details of the story—all that concerned the villain’s supposed death in the American forest—must remain untold till he had Lucius’s permission to reveal it. He set off upon his lonely walk to Foxley with a heavy heart—a soul which the varied beauty of autumnal woods, the shifting lights and shadows upon the undulating stubble, could not gladden. His case had seemed hopeless enough a little while ago, so steadfast was Janet’s determination to hear no word of a second marriage till she had convincing proof that Death had cancelled the first; but it seemed ever so much more hopeless now, after this assurance from Lucius that the man was alive. And as a mere basis for speculation, where ages are equal, one man’s life is as good as another. ‘I daresay that beggar’s ten years my senior,’ pondered Geoffrey as he strode along the rustic lanes, where ripening blackberries hung between him and the sharp clear air; ‘but for all that I’ll be bound he’ll outlive me. If he hadn’t more lives than a cat, he’d hardly have escaped Davoren’s bullet, and the sharp tooth of Jack Frost into the bargain. I suppose he keeps Death at a distance by the awe-inspiring sounds of that fiddle, like Orpheus with his lyre.’ Geoffrey had made up his mind to a desperate step. He would do that which must needs be as bitter as self-inflicted martyrdom. He would tell what he had to tell, and then take a lifelong leave of the woman he loved. Vain, worse than vain, the poor pretence of friendship where his heart was so deeply engaged. Platonism here would be the hollowest falsehood. With heart, soul, and mind he loved her, and for such love as his there was no second name. Better the swift and sudden death of all his joys than that his agonies should be protracted by such occasional meetings as Janet might be disposed to permit—meetings in which he must school his lips to the formal language of polite conversation, while his heart burned to pour out its wealth of passionate love. Foxley wore its accustomed aspect of utter peacefulness. The same donkey, hampered as to the hind legs, grazed on the village-green; the happy geese who had escaped the sacrificial spit at fatal Michaelmas hissed their unfriendly salutation to the stranger. Nothing seemed changed, save that the late-lingering roses looked pale and pinched by the frosty breath of autumnal mornings; and even the dahlias had a weedy look, like fashionable beauties at the close of the London season. Flossie was skipping in the little garden-path, with much exhibition of her scarlet stockings, which flashed gaily from the snow-white drapery of daintily-embroidered petticoats.