‘Isabel--Isabel!’ he repeated. But the flame of his utterance had died down into a grey dreariness. Isabel saw that her moment was passing. A horrible anxiety possessed her. ‘What is it?’ she cried. ‘Kingston, what is it? What has come between us?’ He pointed to the brooch. ‘Gundred,’ he answered--‘Gundred. We had forgotten.’ He was suffering so acutely in the death of passion that he could hardly make his words intelligible. The wrench was agonizing. Passion was not dead, but his heart knew that it must die--that he himself must be its executioner--must cast out the guest that was the dearest part of himself--cast it out and cut the throat of it. He desired still with all his soul, but knew that his desire must rest for ever unfulfilled. He belonged to Gundred. He must face his own responsibilities. Isabel could not hear what he said. But she shivered in the cold that had fallen upon them. Without words she understood what it was that had cut down the flower of his rapture in a moment, what drawn sword it was that had suddenly thrust itself between them. She stood withered and stricken with the shock, grown suddenly pale and old. Kingston was fighting down his pain, struggling with it, and gradually bringing it into bounds. He was too clear-sighted to give himself any hope. Had he been sprung of a more lawless stock, of men accustomed to love where they chose, without consideration of morality, he might have taken his pleasure as it came, and never given a thought to self-reproach or duty. But as it was, bygone generations stirred again in him, of men who had lived cleanly, decently, according to their lights, avoiding the wild urgencies of passion. Law, custom, convention had ingrained into them a respect for rule and restraint, and now their latest descendant reaped in his own person the cruel reward of all their virtues. To go further in the ghastly labyrinth was impossible. Joy was unattainable. Only duty could be pursued. And for shirking that there could be no excuse. Without a word he turned and walked away from that ill-omened motto on the hill-top. Vaguely, with hands thrust down into his pockets, he wandered on, crushing down the misery, the angry clamours of his nature, and steeling himself violently to the preservation of what remained possible to him of decency. For the sake of Gundred, of himself, of Isabel--for the sake of his love and hers, he must at least live as clean as might be. The struggle was a martyrdom, though, the shock of self-mutilation a grinding, lancinating anguish. Isabel stood for a moment, then followed him across the flat ground. She soon caught him up, and they advanced together in silence through the driving mists. Suddenly, vague and ghostly, the old cairn rose before them again, looming mountainous. When he had reached the stones at its foot, Kingston threw himself down upon its steps with a heavy gesture of lassitude. And still the silence ruled.