"Except the man I was to marry. That was the mistake. I ought never to have promised to keep silence. But I did, because she made a point of it, and she had been so kind to me when I was ill. But I ought not to have agreed to it. One ought never to try to cover up anything one has done wrong. And I had a chance of telling you, and I didn't take it, that afternoon we drove to Halywater. Mrs. Stoddart had given me back my promise, and oh! Roger, I meant to tell you. But you were so nice I forgot everything else. And then, later on, when we were in the deserted garden and I saw the little lambs and the fishes, I was so dreadfully sorry that everything else went out of my head. I feel I have deceived you and Janey, and it has often weighed upon me. But I never meant to deceive you. And I'm glad you know now. And I should like her to know too." Her tremulous voice ceased. She stood looking at him with a great wistfulness, but he made no sign. She waited, but he did not speak. Then she went swiftly from him in the dusk, and the mist wrapped her in its grey folds. Roger stood motionless and rigid where she had left him. After a moment, he made a mechanical movement as if to walk on. Then he flung himself down upon his face on the whitening grass. And the merciful mist wrapped him also in its grey folds. Low in the east the thin moon climbed blurred and dim, as if seen through tears. CHAPTER XXXVI "The paths of love are rougher Than thoroughfares of stones." THOMAS HARDY. Roger lay on his face, with his mouth on the back of his hand. Years and years ago, twenty long years ago, he had once lain on his face as he was doing now. He and Dick had been out shooting with the old keeper, and Dick had shot Roger's dog by mistake. He had taken the catastrophe with a stolid stoicism and a bitten lip. But later in the day he had crept away, and had sobbed for hours, lying on his face under a tree. The remembrance came back to him now. Never since then, never in all those twenty years, had he felt again that same paroxysm of despair. And now again Dick had inadvertently wounded him; Dick, who never meant any harm, had pierced his heart. The wound bled, and Roger bit his hand. Time passed. He did not want to get up any more. If he could have died at that moment he would have died. He did not want to have anything more to do with this monstrous cheat called life. He did not want ever to see anyone again. He felt broken. The thought that he should presently get to his feet and stump home through the dusk to his empty rooms, as he had done a hundred times, filled him with a nausea and rage unspeakable. The mere notion of the passage and the clothes-peg and the umbrella-stand annihilated him. He had reached a place in life where he felt he could not go on.