"Mr Pitt," said Winifred in a low voice, after a moment's hesitation. "Mr Pitt says that you sent Mr Tregennas no answer." "So they believe that, do they?" he said in a jarred voice. Winifred could not answer. Her heart was too full of pity and pain for her to speak. She held by the bar of the gate, and saw blankly lying before her the wintry fields, the tall, expressionless poplars. Anthony put another question in a moment, in the same coldly restrained tone. "How do they account for my sharing the property with Marmaduke?" "Anthony, do not force me to repeat such folly." "I must hear." "It is so absurd!" said Winifred, keenly ashamed, and trying to laugh. "They say Marmaduke discovered the secret, and to avoid its becoming known you consented to--to--" "Let him share the spoils. I see. Has Mr Pitt returned to London?" "I believe so. A word from you will set it right." "It should never have been wrong," he said bitterly. "After what you have said I must get home to catch the post. Good by. You don't mind walking back alone? Indeed, it doesn't seem as if my company would do you much credit." He was gone almost before she heard, and a cold desolation crept over her as she stood still, turning her back upon the little network of fields, and watched him striding away along the muddy lane. What a fierceness there had been in his last words! What a sense of separation he had left behind him! It had required all her resolution to take this task upon her, and it was cruel that it should thus recoil upon herself; a sense of injustice must have stirred her into indignation, had it not been for the womanly tenderness which at once turned it aside with compassionate excuses. No wonder that the very breath of such an accusation should have angered him; no wonder that his first thought should have been to hurry to refute it; no wonder, ah, no wonder, that he should forget her.