"I saw them whispering together. I could see they had a secret, something inspired me, and when Taigdh went out I got Pat by himself and I coaxed him and I frightened him. I told him that things had been broken in your studio, and that the police were making inquiries. I saw at once that he knew all about it. He got frightened and he told me that last night when I went to my room he and Taigdh came out of their room and had listened on the stairs. They did not understand everything that was said, they only understood that I had sat for a statue, and that the priest did not wish to put it up in his church, and that perhaps he would have to pay for it, and if he did not the Bishop would suspend him--you know there has always been talk about Father Tom's debts. They got talking, and Taigdh said he would like to see the statue, and he persuaded Pat to follow him, and they climbed along the wall and dropped into the mews, and got the hasp off the door with the kitchen poker." "But why did they break the statue?" said Rodney. "I don't think they know why themselves. I tried to get Pat to tell me, but all he could tell me was that he had bumped against a woman with a cloak on." "My lay figure." "And in trying to get out of the studio they had knocked down a bust, and after they had done that Taigdh said: 'We had better have down this one. The priest does not like it, and if we have it down he won't have to pay for it.'" "They must have heard the priest saying that he did not want the statue." "Very likely they did, but I am sure the priest never said that he wanted the statue broken." "Oh, it is a great muddle," said Rodney. "But there it is. My statue is broken. Two little boys have broken it. Two little boys who overheard a priest talking nonsense, and did not quite understand. I am going away to-night." "Then I shall not see you again,... and you said I was a good model." Her meaning was clear to him. He remembered how he had stood in the midst of his sculpture asking himself what a man is to do when a girl, walking with a walk at once idle and rhythmical, stops suddenly and puts her hand on his shoulder and looks up in his face. He had sworn he would not kiss her again and he had broken his oath, but the desire of her as a model had overborne every other desire. Now he was going away for ever, and his heart told him that she was as sweet a thing as he would find all the world over. But if he took her with him he would have to look after her till the end of his life. This was not his vocation. His hesitation endured but a moment, if he hesitated at all. "You'd like to go away with me, but what should I do with you. I'm thirty-five and you're sixteen." He could see that the difference of age did not strike her--she was not looking into the remote future. "I don't think, Lucy, your destiny is to watch me making statues. Your destiny is a gayer one than that. You want to play the piano, don't you?"