They made their first breakfast in an almost total silence; both wore
the bruised harassed air which tells of a night passed without benefit
of sleep. Immediately afterwards Murch went out alone: Tregellan could
guess the direction of his visit, but not its object; he wondered if
the artist was making his difficult confession. Presently they brought
him in a pencilled note; he recognised, with some surprise, his
friend's tortuous hand.
'I have considered our conversation, and your unjustifiable
interference. I am entirely in your hands: at the mercy of your
extraordinary notions of duty. Tell her what you will, if you must;
and pave the way to your own success. I shall say nothing; but I swear
you love the girl yourself; and are no right arbiter here. Sebastian
Murch.'
He read the note through twice before he grasped its purport; then sat
holding it in lax fingers, his face grown singularly gray.
'It's not true, it's not true,' he cried aloud, but a moment later
knew himself for a self-deceiver all along. Never had
self-consciousness been more sudden, unexpected, or complete. There
was no more to do or say; this knowledge tied his hands. _Ite! missa
est!_...
He spent an hour painfully invoking casuistry, tossed to and fro
irresolutely, but never for a moment disputing that plain fact which
Sebastian had so brutally illuminated. Yes! he loved her, had loved
her all along. Marie-Yvonne! how the name expressed her! at once sweet
and serious, arch and sad as her nature. The little Breton wild
flower! how cruel it seemed to gather her! And he could do no more;
Sebastian had tied his hands. Things must be! He was a man nicely
conscientious, and now all the elaborate devices of his honour, which
had persuaded him to a disagreeable interference, were contraposed
against him. This suspicion of an ulterior motive had altered it, and
so at last he was left to decide with a sigh, that because he loved
these two so well, he must let them go their own way to misery.
Coming in later in the day, Sebastian Murch found his friend packing.
'I have come to get your answer,' he said; 'I have been walking about
the hills like a madman for hours. I have not been near her; I am
afraid. Tell me what you mean to do?'
Tregellan rose, shrugged his shoulders, pointed to his valise.
'God help you both! I would have saved you if you had let me. The
Quimperlé _Courrier_ passes in half-an-hour. I am going by it. I shall
catch a night train to Paris.'
As Sebastian said nothing; continued to regard him with the same dull,
anxious gaze, he went on after a moment:
'You did me a grave injustice; you should have known me better than
that. God knows I meant nothing shameful, only the best; the least
misery for you and her.'
'It was true then?' said Sebastian, curiously. His voice was very
cold; Tregellan found him altered. He regarded the thing as it had
been very remote, and outside them both.
'I did not know it then,' said Tregellan, shortly.
He knelt down again and resumed his packing. Sebastian, leaning
against the bed, watched him with absent intensity, which was yet
alive to trivial things, and he handed him from time to time a book, a
brush, which the other packed mechanically with elaborate care. There
was no more to say, and presently, when the chambermaid entered for
his luggage, they went down and out into the splendid sunshine,
silently. They had to cross the Square to reach the carriage, a dusty
ancient vehicle, hooded, with places for four, which waited outside
the postoffice. A man in a blue blouse preceded them, carrying
Tregellan's things. From the corner they could look down the road to
Quimperlé, and their eyes both sought the white house of Doctor
Mitouard, standing back a little in its trim garden, with its one
incongruous apple tree; but there was no one visible.
Presently, Sebastian asked, suddenly:
'Is it true, that you said last night: divorce to a Catholic--?'
Tregellan interrupted him.
'It is absolutely true, my poor friend.'
He had climbed into his place at the back, settled himself on the
shiny leather cushion: he appeared to be the only passenger. Sebastian
stood looking drearily in at the window, the glass of which had long
perished.
'I wish I had never known, Tregellan! How could I ever tell her!'
Inside, Tregellan shrugged his shoulders: not impatiently, or angrily,
but in sheer impotence; as one who gave it up.
'I can't help you,' he said, 'you must arrange it with your own
conscience.'
'Ah, it's too difficult!' cried the other: 'I can't find my way.'
The driver cracked his whip, suggestively; Sebastian drew back a
little further from the off wheel.
'Well,' said the other, 'if you find it, write and tell me. I am very
sorry, Sebastian.'
'Good-bye,' he replied. 'Yes! I will write.'
The carriage lumbered off, with a lurch to the right, as it turned the
corner; it rattled down the hill, raising a cloud of white dust. As it
passed the Mitouards' house, a young girl, in a large straw hat, came
down the garden, too late to discover whom it contained. She watched
it out of sight, indifferently, leaning on the little iron gate; then
she turned, to recognize the long stooping figure of Sebastian Murch,
who advanced to meet her.