When he came to the bottom of the road he stopped and tried to collect his thoughts. Where was he? What was he going to do? What were the thoughts that were hovering, like birds of prey, about his head, waiting for the moment of descent to come? He stood there quite stupidly, as though his brain had been suddenly swept clear of all thought; it was an empty, desolate room. Everything was empty, desolate. Two plane trees waved mournfully; there were little puddles of rain-water at his feet reflecting the dismal grey of the sky; a very old bent woman in a black cloak hobbled slowly up the hill. Then suddenly his brain was alive again, suddenly he knew. Tony was gone. Tony was gone and he must see people and explain. The thought of the explanations troubled him very little; none of those other people really mattered. They couldn’t do very much; they could only say things. No, they didn’t matter. He didn’t mind about them, or indeed about anyone else in the world except Tony. He saw now a thousand little things that Tony had done, ways that Tony had stood, things that Tony had said, little tricks that he had; and now he had gone away. Things could never be quite the same again. Tony had got some one else now. Everyone had got some one else, some one who especially belonged to them; he saw the world as a place where everyone—murderer, priest, king, prostitute—had his companion, and only he, Maradick, was alone. He had been rather proud of being alone before; he had rather liked to feel that he was quite independent, that it didn’t matter if people died or forgot, because he could get on as well by himself! What a fool he had been! Why, that was simply the only thing worth having, relationships with other people, intimacy, affection, giving anything that you had to some one else, taking something in return from them. Oh! he saw that now! He had been walking vaguely, without thought or purpose. Now he saw that his feet had led him back into the town and that he was in the market-place, facing once more the town. He was determined not to go back to the hotel until he had seen Morelli, and that he could not do before the evening; but that would be the next thing. Meanwhile he would walk—no matter where—but he would get on to the road, into the air, and try and straighten out all the tangled state of things that his mind was in. For a moment he stood and looked at the tower. It gave him again that sense of strength and comfort. He was, after all, not quite alone, whilst the world was the place that it was. Stocks and stones had more of a voice, more of a personal vital activity than most people knew. But he knew! He had known ever since he came to this strange town, this place where every tree and house and hill seemed to be alive.