He said, “I think that was not necessary.”

“No gentleman who cares for his good name can be seen with the scarlet woman of Lyme.”

And that too was a step; for there was a bitterness in her voice. He smiled at her averted face.

“I think the only truly scarlet things about you are your cheeks.”

Her eyes flashed round at him then, as if he were torturing some animal at bay. Then she turned away again.

Charles said gently, “Do not misunderstand me. I deplore your unfortunate situation. As I appreciate your delicacy in respect of my reputation. But it is indifferent to the esteem of such as Mrs. Poulteney.”

She did not move. He continued smiling, at ease in all his travel, his reading, his knowledge of a larger world.

“My dear Miss Woodruff, I have seen a good deal of life. And I have a long nose for bigots… whatever show of solemn piety they present to the world. Now will you please leave your hiding place? There is no impropriety in our meeting in this chance way. And you must allow me to finish what I was about to say.”

He stepped aside and she walked out again onto the cropped turf. He saw that her eyelashes were wet. He did not force his presence on her, but spoke from some yards behind her back.

“Mrs. Tranter would like—is most anxious to help you, if you wish to change your situation.”

Her only answer was to shake her head.

“No one is beyond help… who inspires sympathy in others.” He paused. The sharp wind took a wisp of her hair and blew it forward. She nervously smoothed it back into place. “I am merely saying what I know Mrs. Tranter would wish to say herself.”

Charles was not exaggerating; for during the gay lunch that followed the reconciliation, Mrs. Poulteney and Sarah had been discussed. Charles had been but a brief victim of the old lady’s power; and it was natural that they should think of her who was a permanent one. Charles determined, now that he had rushed in so far where less metropolitan angels might have feared to tread, to tell Sarah their conclusion that day.

“You should leave Lyme… this district. I understand you have excellent qualifications. I am sure a much happier use could be found for them elsewhere.” Sarah made no response. “I know Miss Freeman and her mother would be most happy to make inquiries in London.”

She walked away from him then, to the edge of the cliff meadow; and stared out to sea a long moment; then turned to look at him still standing by the gorse: a strange, glistening look, so direct that he smiled: one of those smiles the smiler knows are weak, but cannot end.

She lowered her eyes. “I thank you. But I cannot leave this place.”

He gave the smallest shrug. He felt baffled, obscurely wronged. “Then once again I have to apologize for intruding on your privacy. I shall not do so again.”

He bowed and turned to walk away. But he had not gone two steps before she spoke.

“I… I know Mrs. Tranter wishes to be kind.”

“Then permit her to have her wish.”

She looked at the turf between them.

“To be spoken to again as if… as if I am not whom I am… I am most grateful. But such kindness…”

“Such kindness?”

“Such kindness is crueler to me than—”

She did not finish the sentence, but turned to the sea. Charles felt a great desire to reach out and take her shoulders and shake her; tragedy is all very well on the stage, but it can seem mere perversity in ordinary life. And that, in much less harsh terms, is what he then said.

“What you call my obstinacy is my only succor.”

“Miss Woodruff, let me be frank. I have heard it said that you are… not altogether of sound mind. I think that is very far from true. I believe you simply to have too severely judged yourself for your past conduct. Now why in heaven’s name must you always walk alone? Have you not punished yourself enough? You are young. You are able to gain your living. You have no family ties, I believe, that confine you to Dorset.”

“I have ties.”

“To this French gentleman?” She turned away, as if that subject was banned. “Permit me to insist—these matters are like wounds. If no one dares speak of them, they fester. If he does not return, he was not worthy of you. If he returns, I cannot believe that he will be so easily put off, should he not find you in Lyme Regis, as not to discover where you are and follow you there. Now is that not common sense?”

There was a long silence. He moved, though still several feet away, so that he could see the side of her face. Her expression was strange, almost calm, as if what he had said had confirmed some deep knowledge in her heart.

She remained looking out to sea, where a russet-sailed and westward-headed brig could be seen in a patch of sunlight some five miles out. She spoke quietly, as if to the distant ship.

“He will never return.”

“You fear he will never return?”

“I know he will never return.”

“I do not take your meaning.”

She turned then and looked at Charles’s puzzled and solicitous face. For a long moment she seemed almost to enjoy his bewilderment. Then she looked away.

“I have long since received a letter. The gentleman is…” and again she was silent, as if she wished she had not revealed so much. Suddenly she was walking, almost running, across the turf towards the path.

“Miss Woodruff!”

She took a step or two more, then turned; and again those eyes both repelled and lanced him. Her voice had a pent-up harshness, yet as much implosive as directed at Charles.

“He is married!”

“Miss Woodruff!”

But she took no notice. He was left standing there. His amazement was natural. What was unnatural was his now quite distinct sense of guilt. It was as if he had shown a callous lack of sympathy, when he was quite sure he had done his best. He stared after her several moments after she had disappeared. Then he turned and looked at the distant brig, as if that might provide an answer to this enigma. But it did not.

That evening Charles found himself seated between Mrs. Tranter and Ernestina in the Assembly Rooms. The Lyme Assembly Rooms were perhaps not much, compared to those at Bath and Cheltenham; but they were pleasing, with their spacious proportions and windows facing the sea. Too pleasing, alas, and too excellent a common meeting place not to be sacrificed to that Great British God, Convenience; and they were accordingly long ago pulled down, by a Town Council singleminded in its concern for the communal bladder, to make way for what can very fairly claim to be the worst-sited and ugliest public lavatory in the British Isles.

You must not think, however, that the Poulteney contingent in Lyme objected merely to the frivolous architecture of the Assembly Rooms. It was what went on there that really outraged them. The place provoked whist, and gentlemen with cigars in their mouths, and balls, and concerts. In short, it encouraged pleasure; and Mrs. Poulteney and her kind knew very well that the only building a decent town could allow people to congregate in was a church. When the Assembly Rooms were torn down in Lyme, the heart was torn out of the town; and no one has yet succeeded in putting it back.