But at dinner there were plans to be made. To-night she would go back to

the hotel, but tomorrow he would take her up to London. He must instruct

his solicitor--Jack Herring. Not a finger must be raised to hinder the

process of the Law. Damages exemplary, judicial strictures, costs, what

they liked--let it go through at the first moment, so that her neck

might be out of chancery at last! To-morrow he would see Herring--they

would go and see him together. And then--abroad, leaving no doubt, no

difficulty about evidence, making the lie she had told into the truth.

He looked round at her; and it seemed to his adoring eyes that more

than a woman was sitting there. The spirit of universal beauty, deep,

mysterious, which the old painters, Titian, Giorgione, Botticelli, had

known how to capture and transfer to the faces of their women--this

flying beauty seemed to him imprinted on her brow, her hair, her lips,

and in her eyes.

'And this is to be mine!' he thought. 'It frightens me!'

After dinner they went out on to the terrace to have coffee. They sat

there long, the evening was so lovely, watching the summer night

come very slowly on. It was still warm and the air smelled of lime

blossom--early this summer. Two bats were flighting with the faint

mysterious little noise they make. He had placed the chairs in front

of the study window, and moths flew past to visit the discreet light in

there. There was no wind, and not a whisper in the old oak-tree twenty

yards away! The moon rose from behind the copse, nearly full; and the

two lights struggled, till moonlight conquered, changing the colour and

quality of all the garden, stealing along the flagstones, reaching their

feet, climbing up, changing their faces.

"Well," said Jolyon at last, "you'll be tired, dear; we'd better start.

The maid will show you Holly's room," and he rang the study bell. The

maid who came handed him a telegram. Watching her take Irene away, he

thought: 'This must have come an hour or more ago, and she didn't bring

it out to us! That shows! Well, we'll be hung for a sheep soon!' And,

opening the telegram, he read:

"JOLYON FORSYTE, Robin Hill.--Your son passed painlessly away on June

20th. Deep sympathy"--some name unknown to him.

He dropped it, spun round, stood motionless. The moon shone in on him;

a moth flew in his face. The first day of all that he had not thought

almost ceaselessly of Jolly. He went blindly towards the window, struck

against the old armchair--his father's--and sank down on to the arm of

it. He sat there huddled' forward, staring into the night. Gone out like

a candle flame; far from home, from love, all by himself, in the dark!

His boy! From a little chap always so good to him--so friendly! Twenty

years old, and cut down like grass--to have no life at all! 'I didn't

really know him,' he thought, 'and he didn't know me; but we loved each

other. It's only love that matters.'




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