She stood for a moment or two white and trembling, as if stricken by a mortal malady. There was a dead silence. She looked at Hugh fixedly. Then she turned slowly and walked towards the door. Gerard was frightened. The flabby conscience was wrung. This was the second time he had stabbed her to the heart. For the moment he forgot everything save her innocence and her anguish. He overtook her in two or three sudden strides. “For God’s sake, Irene--I’m an infernal blackguard--forgive me.” But, her back towards him, she waved him away, with outstretched hand, and in a few seconds had left the room. “Now, we two,” said Hugh, drawing himself up. “What are your intentions?” “What intentions can I have?” replied Gerard, sullenly. “You heard what I just said to Irene.” Hugh turned away with a gesture of helplessness, and catching sight of the boy’s photograph lying on the floor where Gerard had dropped it, he stooped mechanically and picked it up. “I think you had better go,” he said, wearily, fingering the frame; “and if you have anything of the man left in you, you will leave her alone, and hold your tongue about all this.” “I have no object in making it public,” replied Gerard. “Very well,” said Hugh, looking at the boy’s portrait. Gerard left the house, and drew a great breath on reaching the open air. He had made a fool of himself again. He had taken his revenge; had eaten the food of the humble. He wished, in a futile way, that he had not acted on Minna Hart’s confession. His Quixotic impulses had led him to ignominious upheaval among the sheep. Fate was serving him shabbily. He walked to the Marble Arch and idly entered the Park. His head was full of the past interview. Hugh Colman’s attitude had produced an irritating sense of discomfort. He had attacked him in the anticipation of unmasking a villain. He had unmasked him, and found the same proud, always bitterly envied man. Furthermore, he had found himself the villain. For a hundred yards he tried to sentimentalise over his final and irrevocable loss of Irene. But he was honest enough to abandon the attempt. He called himself a fool for his lovesick pains; consoled himself with the assurance that she never was and never could be his style. Yet he felt sick of life, sick of his blundering and ill-used self. He walked on aimlessly. At last he found himself in the Broad Walk of Kensington Gardens. It came on to rain from a leaden March sky. He hailed a cab, entered it and closed the panels. “Where to, sir?” asked the driver, through the trap-door in the roof. Gerard did not know. He mentioned his club. The cab started. The sudden decision brought his future plans before his mind. Somehow England seemed a cold, tame, unattractive place. His visions of a country estate in Norfolk lost their charm. He wished he had never left Africa. “I’ll soon clear out of this beastly country again,” he said to himself. CHAPTER XXV