"So I understood. I think I had better take your advice and run down. Thank you, Ferris. I am glad to have seen you. My mother-in-law has the art of making the most of things, and I was not sure just how unwell my wife is." After the exchange of a few commonplaces, they parted. Ferris watched Gaunt limp into the inn yard, and turned away with an involuntary, "Poor devil!" He stood irresolute upon the pavement for a minute or two, then strolled into the post office, and wrote a telegram to Rosenberg: _Gaunt coming down. Be on your guard._ He was eager to stand well with both parties, and this was his idea of accomplishing such object. * * * * * Never had the avenue which led to his own housedoor seemed to Gaunt so wild, so desolate, as when he rode up it this evening. The sun was already setting, gleaming fierce and threatening red through the purple ragged clouds which all day long had veiled it. He knew that everything was over, but he also knew that to be any longer passive was beyond him. He was going to London at once, by that same late train from Derby which had taken her from him. To sleep in a bed this night would be insupportable. If he were in the train he would feel that he was not wasting hours of enforced inaction. He would be in London in time to take an early train to Worthing, and he would arrive there during the morning, and ascertain his exact fate. Now he knew how firmly he had built upon the idea of Virginia's faith. In the depths of his twisted, shrunken, yet living heart, he had been certain that she would keep her word. He still believed that she would have kept it, had not revelation come to her. She and Rosenberg having discovered the feeling which existed between them, how could she come back to her nominal husband with a lie upon her lips? As soon as she was well enough, she meant to write and explain. He was sure of that. He kept insisting upon it, in his mind. He would save her that effort. He would go to her and make things as easy as he could. He would explain that he knew himself to have forfeited all claim. His horse's hoofs were beating to the refrain: "All over! All over!" What a fool he had made himself over the redecorating of that room! That room which from henceforth no human foot would enter. Only the previous night he had sat there for a couple of hours, playing upon the new piano he had bought for her, and conjuring up the picture of her, outlined against the delicate ivory walls, each tint of her faint sea-shell colouring properly emphasised by the appropriate background. He would always see her like that in future. His desolate house would be haunted for all the desolate time to come.