He didn’t expect to see the Gales again. After all, there was nothing more for him to say. They had Tony’s address. It only remained for Sir Richard to get over it as quickly as he could. Lady Gale would probably manage that. He would like to have spoken to her once more, but really it was as well that he shouldn’t. He would write to her. He discovered before he left the house that another part of the affair was over altogether. As he reached the bottom of the stairs Mrs. Lester crossed the hall, and, for a moment, they faced each other. She looked through him, past him, as though she had never seen him before. Her eyes were hard as steel and as cold. They passed each other silently. He was not surprised; he had thought that that was the way that she would probably take it. Probably with the morning had come fierce resentment at his attitude and fiery shame at her own. How she could! That would be her immediate thought, and then, very soon after that, it would be that she hadn’t at all. He had led her on. And then in a week’s time it would probably be virtuous resistance against the persuasions of an odious sensualist. Of course she would never forgive him. He passed out into the air. As he went down the hill to the town it struck him that the strange emotional atmosphere that had been about them during these weeks seemed to have gone with the going of Tony. It might be only coincidence, of course, but undoubtedly the boy’s presence had had something to do with it all. And then his imagination carried him still further. It was fantastic, of course, but his struggle with Morelli seemed to have put an end to the sort of influence that the man had been having. Because he had had an influence undoubtedly. And now to-day Morelli didn’t seem to go for anything at all. And then it might be, too, that they had all at last got used to the place; it was no longer a fresh thing, but something that they had taken into their brains, their blood. Anyhow, that theory of Lester’s about places and people in conjunction having such influence, such power, was interesting. But, evolve what theories he might, of one thing he was certain. There had been a struggle, a tremendous straggle. They had all been concerned in it a little, but it had been his immediate affair. He turned down the high road towards the town. The day was a “china” day; everything was of the faintest, palest colours, delicate with the delicacy of thin silk, of gossamer lace washed by the rain, as it were, until it was all a symphony of grey and white and a very tender blue. It was a day of hard outlines. The white bulging clouds that lay against the sky were clouds of porcelain; the dark black row of trees that bordered the road stood out from the background as though they had been carved in iron; the ridge of back-lying hills ran like the edge of a sheet of grey paper against the blue; the sea itself seemed to fling marble waves upon a marble shore.