"She wants to say something to you." He frowned in hesitation. "If I thought there was the smallest chance of her being induced to enter into direct communication with him, I'd say no at once. But there's no chance of that. And she wants to see you. Yes, you can see her, if you like. She's in the garden, by the lake, I think. She's taken this well, Hayes; she's showing a thousand times more pluck than I ever thought she had." His voice grew gentle. "Poor little girl! Yes, go! She wants to see you." Andy had taken nothing by his first mission; he felt quite hopelessly unfit for his second. To offer the apologies of a faithless swain was no more in his line than to be a faithless swain himself; the fleeting relics of Harry's authority had imposed a last uncongenial task. Perhaps his very mum-chanceness was his saving. Glib protestations would have smacked too strongly of the principal to commend the agent. Vivien heard his stammering words in silence, seeming wrapped in an aloofness that she took for her sole remaining protection. She bowed her head gravely at the "bitter regret," at the "unguarded moment," at the "fatal irresolution"--Andy's memory held fast to the phrases, but refused to weld them into one of Harry's shapely periods. On "fatal irresolution" he came to a full stop. He dared not look at her--it would seem an intrusion, a brutality; he stared steadily over the lake. "I knew he had moods like that," she said after a long silence. "I never realized what they could do to a man. I daresay it would be hard for me to realize. I'm glad he wanted to--to say a word of regret. There's one thing I should like you to tell him; that's why I wanted to see you." Now Andy turned to her, for her voice commanded his attention. "How fagged-out you look, Miss Wellgood!" he exclaimed impulsively. "Things aren't easy," she said in a low steady voice. "If I could have silence! But I have to listen to denunciation. You'll understand. Did he tell you what--what passed?" "The gist of it, I think." "Then you'll understand that I mayn't have the power to stop the denunciations, or--or the other steps that may be threatened or taken. I should like him to know that they're not my doing. And I should like him to know too that I would a thousand times sooner this had happened than that other thing which I believe he meant to happen--honestly meant to happen--but for--this accident." "I'm with you in that, Miss Wellgood. It's far better."