The old man was gleeful at heart, thinking that the cloud had passed out of the lovers’ sky. But to Marden this calm seemed more ominous than open warfare. Nevertheless he saddled his horse and rode away and made his affidavit to Captain Matters. He did what he must; but it was not alone a sense of justice that moved him, and not alone compassion for an outcast woman. Celia had in effect ‘dared’ him, and even had he been so little scrupulous as to be willing to withhold his evidence, he would still have lacked courage to refuse battle with her. If I let her rule me in this, he said, she will despise me for a weakling; and because he was truly weak, because he was so much in dread of losing her, he dared not appear so. But now, he thought, as he rode quickly back to her, now I can crave her forgiveness, even though I have done no wrong. And he tasted in anticipation the sweetness of reconciliation.
She greeted him stonily. ‘May I ask where you have been? It is a matter that concerns us both.’
He bowed, trembling and angry: angry that she must force these formal manners upon him. ‘To Upchurch, as you well know. On the business we discussed yesterday.’
She thought: I hate him, I hate him. If she had said as much to Marden, he would perhaps have known the true violence of her love and made all right between them. But she controlled and concealed herself. ‘Very well,’ she said. And it seemed by her air to be a matter of infinite unimportance. ‘You are released from your engagement, Mr Marden.’
‘You cannot mean that—for so small a thing.’ He suddenly seized her hands, and the contact made him for a moment forget her words, so that he would have kissed her. But she, though longing to surrender, and sick with loneliness, turned sharply away and with her hands, her stiff body, her disdainful looks, repulsed him.
He bowed, accepting dismissal. ‘Your pardon, madam. I will go saddle my horse again.’