His dealings with them had been many and various! But at a
given moment he had put an end to them forever. And no false
sentimentalism should be allowed to tamper with the thing done.
At this point he found himself sinking into his chair; and must needs
confess himself somewhat shaken by what had happened. He was angry with
his physical weakness, and haunted in spite of himself by the hue and
fragrance of that youth he had just been watching--there--at the corner
of the table--beside the Watteau sketch. He sat staring at the
drawing....
Till the threatened vitality within again asserted itself; beat off the
besieging thoughts; and clutched fiercely at some new proof of its own
strength. The old man raised himself, and laid his hand on the telephone
which connected his room with that of Faversham.
How, in Dixon's custody, Felicia reached the station, and stumbled into
the train, and how, at the other end, she groped her way into the gates
of Duddon and began the long woodland ascent to the castle, Felicia never
afterward knew. But when she had gone a few steps along the winding drive
Where the intermittent and stormy moonlight was barely enough to guide
her, she felt her strength suddenly fail her. She could never climb the
long hill to the house--she could never fight the wind that was rising
in her face. She must sit down, till some one came--to help.
She sank down upon a couch of moss, at the foot of a great oak-tree which
was still thick with withered leaf.
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