She turned to her paragraph again, read it with comprehension, and from the paragraph her trouble sprang at her and caught her by the heart. For what she read was the account of the opening of the branch line to Algeciras. Charnock's work was done, then; he would be leaving Algeciras. Even at that moment her first feeling was one of approaching loneliness, so closely had the man crept into her thoughts. She took a step towards her parlour, stopped, stood for a moment irresolute, ran up the winding iron staircase to the landing half-way up the patio, and fetched a new long white kid glove from her dressing-room. She moulded it upon her hand, soiled it by a ten minutes' wearing, ripped it across the palm, and sealed it up in an envelope. Jane Holt came into the patio while Miranda was still writing the address. "What's that?" she asked. "A sham, Jane, a sham," said Miranda, in a queer, unsteady voice; "a trick, the first of them." Jane Holt shook her head. "You are very strange, Miranda," but Miranda picked up the envelope, and putting on her hat hurried to the post-office. As she crossed the bridge over the Tajo a man barred her way. She tried to pass him; he moved again in front of her, and she saw that the man was Wilbraham. "I wish to speak to you." "In ten minutes," said she, "in the Alameda. I have a letter to post." "The letter can wait," said he. "If it did, it would never be posted," said she, and she hurried past him. The Major followed her with inquisitive eyes; he felt a certain admiration for her buoyant walk, her tall slight figure, which a white muslin dress with a touch of colour at the waist so well set off, and for the pose of her head under the wide straw hat. But business instincts prevailed over his admiration. He lit a cigarette. "What is the large sealed letter which must be posted at once, or it will never be posted at all?" he asked himself. "Why must it be posted at once?" He strolled to the Alameda unable to find an answer. In the Alameda, at the bench before the railings, Miranda was waiting for him. She rose at once to meet him. "Why have you come?" she asked. "It is not quarter-day. We made our bargain. I have kept my part of it." "Yes," said he. "But it was not a good bargain for me. I underrated my necessities. I overrated my taste for a quiet life." "And the Horace?" she asked scornfully. "One of the few things worth doing, was it not?" Wilbraham flushed angrily. "So it is," he said. "But I find it difficult to settle down. I need, in fact,--do we not all need them?--intervals of relaxation." He spoke uneasily; he looked even more worn and tired than when he first came to Ronda. Miranda understood that here indeed was the real tragedy of the man's life.