Once outside upon the common she began to run. She was carrying Giles’s heart in her hand and it was heavy to carry. From the tapestry she felt Grand-père’s stern eyes following her; and Maman’s eyes. Intently, intently Maman’s eyes watched her as she ran. She could not read their look. And far away, as if he had forgotten her, Jerry rode into the blue distance with ladies in hennins mounted on unicorns; figures faded to the pattern of the background. Or was it she who had forgotten Jerry? When she reached the Rectory, she did not ring. She entered softly, standing for a moment to regain her breath and listen. Footsteps were moving in the drawing-room. The drawing-room door was ajar. She pushed it open and entered. CHAPTER VIII Toppie stood in the middle of the room with open packing-cases around her. The sun came in and shone upon the walls and the room looked pale and high and vacant. There were no flowers anywhere; all the little intimate things were gone. Toppie stood alone among her doves. And upstairs, in Toppie’s room, the doves brooded upon a little box where Captain Owen’s letters lay. She was packing the books, carrying them from the shelves that filled the spaces between the windows and laying them in the boxes; and as Alix entered so softly, closing the door behind her, she stood still, holding a book in her hand and looking up with what, for a moment, was only surprise. A horrible blow of pity assailed Alix as she saw her. All in black; so white; so wasted, she was like the _cierge_ unlighted. “But it is for her sake, too,” Alix thought, seeing Toppie sinking, sinking away from the world of sun and friendship into the silence and solitude of the grave. “Better to suffer; better to suffer dreadfully, and come back to us,” she thought. And the visions that had always accompanied her thoughts still moved before her so that it was pain like fire she saw lifted in her own hands towards the cold _cierge_; to light it into life once more. Toppie stood holding her book and looking across at her, and, all unbidden and unwelcome as she must feel her guest to be, the deep fondness of her heart betrayed itself by a faint smile. “I have come to speak with you, Toppie,” said Alix. She could not smile back. She could not go towards Toppie with outstretched arms. The sofa where she and Toppie always sat together was on the other side of the room. She felt that she could not stand and tell Toppie; her strength might forsake her; she might find herself, when the moment came, turning away and escaping. If she and Toppie were on the sofa it would be safer. “I have seen Giles,” she said. “It is because of what Giles has told me that I have come—May I sit down? Will you come beside me?” Toppie said not a word. She stood there, her smile vanished, holding the book, and watched her as she crossed the room to the sofa and sank down upon it. Then, after a moment, she laid down the book and followed her.