She was taken up to see Mr. Westmacott, who sat at an open window, a reading-table before him with books upon it. Sitting there, as formally courteous as ever, with his tall pale head and eyes still clearly blue, he did not look so ill. It was more in his voice as he questioned her about her journey that she felt change. His voice had become dry and brittle, like a glacial wind fluttering the leaves of an old abandoned volume that no one would ever read again. He would soon die; Alix felt sure of that as she heard him. He would die, and Toppie would leave the Rectory and wander forth desolate, among her doves. Why, oh, why, would she not see and understand Giles? Why would she not marry him? “Oh, if I could see her married to Giles,” she thought, when she had said good-bye to Toppie and was out again upon the common. “If I could only help Giles so that he should marry her, it would have been worth while that I should have come to England!” And that there was mistake, misunderstanding between Giles and Toppie, she was now sure. She had gone halfway across the dried heather, when, as on the evening of her first visit to the Rectory, she saw Giles approaching her, Jock at his heels, and she knew now, as she had then only felt instinctively, that he had been waiting for her and that he was afraid of something. Of the same thing; yet of more. Jock saw her and raced ahead to jump against her knees. He was still her special pet among the dogs and had received Blaise kindly. Alix stooped to caress his head while she watched Giles approach her. “Well, how did you find Toppie?” he asked simply, as they met.—Giles not true! Giles easily misled! Alix felt herself suddenly blushing with anger as the thought of Toppie’s strange delusion returned to her. Giles drew her arm within his and they went across the common towards the birch-wood. It gave her a deep feeling of consolation that he should thus seek refuge with the one person who could understand him. “I find her changed, Giles,” she said. “In what way changed?” said Giles quickly. And as quickly Alix answered: “Not at all to me, Giles.” “You see how desperately ill her father is, don’t you?” said Giles. “She’s quite worn out with nursing him, you know. In what way do you feel her changed?” he repeated, looking down into her face. Alix was pondering. She was not a person who believed in black and white. She believed in the greys and the in-between shades. She did not mean to tell Giles how she thought Toppie changed. What she found to say was: “If Toppie were happier she would not be so hard.” “Hard?” She was looking at the ground, but she heard in Giles’s voice how the word startled him. “Do you not think Toppie hard?” she asked. “If she is,” said Giles after a moment, “it’s because of what you say—that she is unhappy.”