She weakened through impatience at his aloofness, craving to know all that had happened to him, to get to the roots of Myra’s mysterious intrigue. His fatalistic attitude was maddening. The whole crazy combination of tragedy and farce that had set them down in the gorse-enclosed hollow of the hill-side, as though they were the only people on God’s earth, was maddening. The brass buttons were maddening. She flung sudden arms out wide. “For God’s sake tell me everything that has happened to you.” “If you’ll believe it,” said he. She sat silent for a moment, feeling as though she were under his rebuke, and gazed over the valley at the hills black beneath the dying green and faded orange of the sunset. The thin smoke of the burned car mounted into the windless air faint with the smell of petrol fumes and scorched woodwork. And Triona looked down too and saw the end of the creation of his resurrection. He pointed to it. “That was one of my little dreams,” he said gently. “A sort of rat trap on wheels—the most hopeless box of antiquated imbecility you can imagine. I took it into my head to recreate it. For a time I devoted my soul to it—and I made it a thing of life and speed and obedience. And there it lies dead, a column of smoke, like all dreams and, all my deliberate fault. Every system of philosophy, since the world began, has overlooked the ironical symbolism of life. That’s one; and my dream—smoke.” She fell under the spell of his voice, although her brain revolted. Yet his note rang sincere in her heart—she knew not what to say. The sunset colours over the ridge of hills died into iron blue of the sky. A faint breeze stirred. She shivered with cold in her thin Tussore silk. He, watching her, saw the shiver. “You’re cold, you must be getting back.” He rose. She sprang to her feet before he could help her to rise. “I’ll see you to Mrs. Pettiland’s.” They scrambled to the high road above them, and began to walk, in constrained silence. Suddenly she cried: “You’ve hurt yourself. You’re limping dreadfully. You told me you were unhurt——” She clutched his arm. “You can’t go on like this.” “I’ll go on like this,” said he, thrilling under her touch, “to the day of my death. It has nothing to do with this evening’s entertainment. I was smashed up by a motor-lorry over a year ago, as Myra will tell you. That’s what knocked me out of Poland.” She echoed his words—“Smashed up by a motor-lorry?—It might have killed you—and I should have never known.” “Myra would have told you. As a matter of fact it very nearly did kill me.” She turned her head away with a shudder. “And just now——” “I ought to have waited till I had turned the corner—” he pointed out the bend a few yards in front of them. “Hell’s Corner, they call it hereabouts. Then you wouldn’t have seen me go over, and I might have had better luck.”