It may easily be imagined that no apologies were forthcoming from Gabriel for the affair, seeing that he was ignorant of the incidents chronicled above. The quarrel in the library, a mere tumult of words, had arisen like a dust-storm in the desert, sudden and without warning. The man had lost his dignity for the moment under the lash of the woman’s tongue, though even his involuntary descent to her level had not justified, in his estimation, her exhibition of feline spite. He was utterly innocent of the suspicion that she had deliberately tricked him into a display of violence. She was too subtle for the man with her glittering cleverness, perilous as a Spanish dagger. The following day Gabriel had political business in Rilchester and drove off early in his dog-cart, purposing to be home before the evening dinner-hour. Ophelia and Mabel Saker were breakfasting in the “blue room,” and Gabriel did not see his wife that morning. He was in a dismal mood enough, harassed by shapeless fancies, haunted by the pale face and the shimmering hair of the woman who held his heart. He had fathomed hour by hour the gulf of gloom she had left within his life. The world stood at June, the man’s mood at December. It was even remarked that day by certain of his political confrères that he seemed depressed and burdened beyond his strength. He appeared, in fact, like a man overshadowed by some secret shame. His conversation had none of the subtle and half-cynical adroitness that had characterized it of old; it was limp and listless, a blunted weapon wielded by a weary hand. His intellect seemed out of gear, wayward, languid, masterless. Occasionally a sparkle of enthusiasm shone through the preoccupied mask of melancholy. It was the common dictum of his acquaintances that “young Strong was out of health.” He drove homeward late in the afternoon, with the sky a peerless pavilion of gold above his head. A preternatural peace seemed to weigh upon the lids of the day. In the depths of her green valley the Mallan lay with her glittering coils torpid in the sun. The trees took no breath. The clouds stood statuesque upon the hills. A prophetic sense of evil awoke in the man’s mind as he climbed the hill towards his home. He saw the gray chimneys rising above the green, the shrubberies dusky upon the hill-side, gardens gleaming like painted glass. The place looked peaceful as sleep, a home to love and to be loved in, a haunt for elfish children, a calm refuge from the world. As he drove in by the gate the gardener’s children ran out from the lodge and stood staring at him with credulous blue eyes. He tossed them some coppers as he drove by, smiling to himself half bitterly. All about him were sun-kissed trees, flowers brilliant in the sun. The scent of new-mown hay came from the meadows. There were pigeons cooing on the great, white wooden columbary behind the house.