‘I wish to see Mr. Craig,’ he said, just as he had said two hours before to Mrs. Bridget. ‘Mr. Craig,’ said the clerk, ‘is at present taking his annual holiday. He will return to business in a fortnight’s time.’ Richard returned to the car curiously annoyed, with a sense of being baffled. His thoughts ran back to Teresa. Thirty miles of Watling Street now separated them, yet her image was more strenuously before him than it had been at any time since she fainted in the silver-heaped stable on Saturday night. ‘Yes,’ he said to himself positively, ‘I’ll call on Lord Dolmer at once, and tell him I won’t have anything further to do with the affair.’ He dropped Mr. Puddephatt, whose society, he felt, was perhaps growing rather tedious to him, at Oxford Circus, and directed him to an omnibus for the Elephant and Castle. ‘My address is 4, Adelphi Terrace, in case you need a friend in London at any time,’ said Richard. ‘Good-day to ye, sir,’ said Mr. Puddephatt, ‘and thank ye kindly. Shall we be seeing you again at Hockliffe soon?’ ‘No,’ said Richard shortly. ‘I am not likely ever to come to Hockliffe. My business there is absolutely concluded.’ They shook hands, full of goodwill. As Mr. Puddephatt’s burly and rustic form faded away into the crowd Richard watched it, and thought how strange, and, indeed, pathetic, it was that two human beings should casually meet, become in a measure intimate, and then part for evermore, lost to each other in the mazy wilderness of an immense civilization. He drove the car to Holborn Viaduct, deposited it on the Williamson Company’s premises, and then took a bus for Piccadilly. As he did so it began to rain, at first gently, then with a more determined steadiness: a spell of fine weather which had lasted for several weeks was at last broken. In less than half an hour he was at Lord Dolmer’s door in Half-Moon Street.