They followed the lane westward, skirting the edge of the fair-field. When they reached the foot of “The Slopes,” they saw the whole of Ramsgard outspread before them. The sunset-mist, rising up from the River Lunt, threw over the little town the sort of glamour that cities wear in old fantastic prints. Vaguely, under the anaesthesia of this diffused glory in the chilly air, he marvelled at the mad chance that had plunged him into these two girls’ lives with this disturbing simultaneousness. He began furtively trying to annihilate with his imagination first one life and then the other from his obstinate preoccupation. But the effort proved hopelessly futile! To conceive of the future without Gerda’s loveliness was impossible. But equally was it impossible to cover up this strange new feeling. Only “pity,”⁠ ⁠… but a pity that had a quivering sweetness in it!

“You’re all right now?” he enquired abruptly, as they crossed the railway-track.