April came and found the Quantock Garage in full tide of business. Hetherington of “The Bull” had long since given up his wheezy station car and the motor-destroying works in which he housed it. Triona laboured from morning to night, for a while content to see the wheels of an efficient establishment go round. And then he began to grow restless. He had set Radnor permanently on his feet. If he left, the business would go on by its own momentum. Nothing more was needed than Radnor’s own conscientious plodding. Why should he stay? He had achieved his purpose. Radnor would surely be in a financial position warranting him to marry the girl by Michaelmas. “I’ll see him through,” he vowed, and stayed on. “And then——” And then? Life once more became a blank. Of late he had drugged lonely and despairing thoughts by reading. Books grew into great piles in corners of his loft above the garage. But reading awoke him to the poignant craving for expression. He had half a dozen tantalizing plots for novels in his head, a score of great situations, a novelist’s gallery of vivid personalities. As to the latter, he had a superstition. If he gave one a name it would arise in flesh and blood, insistent on having its story told. So he shut tempting names resolutely from his brain; for he had made up his queer mind never to write another line of romance. The spring stirred the sap within him. It was a year now since he had fled from Olivia. What was she doing, what feeling? Occasionally he called on Mrs. Pettiland. Myra, he learned, had paid her weekly visit in October, had occupied his old room, had gone to visit her lunatic husband, had maintained her impenetrable silence as to her mistress’s doings. When Mrs. Pettiland had reported his chauffeur activities, Myra had said: “I’m glad he has got honest employment.” “Shall I let him know that you’re here?” Mrs. Pettiland had asked. Myra had answered in her final way: “I’ve no desire to see him and he certainly has no desire to see me.”