After a time she left the place, slipped out through the garden-gate into the green field behind the _manoir_ and wandered unseeingly along the hedge, and at length flung herself down on the ground, sobbing. She was alone, so utterly alone. The one in whose hands she had put her whole life had betrayed her and deserted her. It was worse than death. They were there in that dim, silent room, in the utmost intimacy, and she lay here outside, robbed and abandoned.... She rose to get farther away from the place, when she heard steps approaching on the other side of the hedge. Kneeling close to the ground, she could see through the thick roots of the hedge and watch the two as they came up the lane. It was her husband and the Russian woman. They were not closeted in the house. She had been wrong. They had been for a stroll after his work, and were coming back now for their tea, silently and companionably, side by side. For the merest moment Milly had a sense of relief: it might not be true what her heart had said, after all. But almost at once she knew that it made no difference just what their relations were or had been. She could read their faces as they came slowly towards her,--the Russian woman's slanting glance from covered eyes of hateful content as she looked at the artist. The "one who eats what she wants!"... They walked very slowly, as if full of thoughts and weary with the day. Bragdon's head was high, his glance fell far off across the fields, his mind intent on something within, his brow slightly contracted as in stern resolve. He was pale, and he seemed to his wife older, much older than she remembered. He was a man, not the careless boy she had married so many, many years ago, and her heart tightened anew with intolerable pain.... His glance fell to the expectant face of his companion, and both smiled with profound intimacy as at a meeting where words are needless.... Milly's hand grasped the prickly vines of the hedge, and she held herself still until they had passed. No, it made no difference to her now what they thought or did. She knew.