I would rather trust a devil to look after his own than a god, he thought, for there seemed to him nothing more final and irrevocable than death. It did not occur to him that Elizabeth’s death might be irrevocable only to him and his desire. Thinking of the devil, he thought too of the stubbled face of dead Mr. Jennings. Perhaps he would guard her, as she believed, through the crude force of jealousy. If love survived the body, as church people believed, why not also jealousy, spilt like a bitter wine into the unhoused spirit? Keep her, he implored, till I return, not noticing the paradox of his appeal. He would return the next day or the day after, having fulfilled the letter of his promise.
It was hard to leave this point of the down, where he could watch the cottage. He wanted by the intensity of his gaze to pierce the walls, make a breach through which, even if he were still robbed of sight, the slow sound of her feet might come to him.
“I will return,” he said out loud, but the inner critic who had been still for so long roused himself as though at a challenge and taunted him. You coward, what use? What are you that she should look twice at you? At least a fool, he protested, who may be running himself into a trap for her. The mocker spoke suddenly as though in the heart itself, denuded for the once of reproach. Would she not be worthy of the full risk? Then if you come back you bring her something of value. Yes, but that “if.” There was the rub. I was born a coward, he protested, and I will live a coward. At least I have shown these fools that I must be reckoned with, and rising and turning his back on the cottage, he began to walk rapidly in the direction of Lewes, as though he would outpace an image moving at his side of a girl’s face set between candles, the mouth twisted with the wry taste of a betrayal.
Yet his quick walk soon slackened, for the day was warm, and he was in no hurry to reach Lewes. He paused here to watch the valley and the light on a small squat church, there to drink with a herd of black and white cows at a dew-pond on the downs, bright blue from the reflected sky as though it were part of an illuminated Missal. The cows raised their soft eyes, too drowsy for suspicion, and then made room for him. They were contented and at peace and so for a short while was he. But at every reiterated summit on the downs his heart filled with apprehension, lest below him he should see the object of his journey, and filled again with blessed relief as he gazed before him at the inevitable slopes rising in the distance to yet another crest. At the edge of one such summit he heard voices and dropped cautiously into a narrow gorge of chalk, the cold walls on either side gleaming like blue icicles. The voices, however, belonged only to two dark-skinned gipsy youths, trotting intently over the rise followed by a couple of flippant black puppies, who jumped over each other and rolled in the grass mocking their master’s serious purpose. Andrews asked the boys whether he was on the right way to Lewes, and they nodded their heads, watching him with the same dark drowsy peace as had the cattle. Then, like all else, they left him to comforting solitude. The minutes and the hours passed him almost unnoticed. He even forgot his fear of reaching the final summit, so inevitable the relief seemed. He was aware only of the warm day dying when he was no longer able to rest so long upon the slopes before chill gripped him.
Slowly the moon which swam far out over the Surrey hills grew more distinct, breasting a tide grown darker blue with the approach of evening. Somewhere out by Hassocks the sun sank level with the downs, which lay, barred with the last parallel gold rays pointing to Lewes. Up Harry’s Mount he climbed, his fear forgotten, and reaching its crest looked down with shocked surprise on Lewes, crouching in the valley like a fierce remnant of old winter.
He stood and watched, sick and suddenly tired at heart, half ready to perceive it stretch out an arm to sweep him down. This is the end then, he thought. Must I go down and talk with people again, and be everlastingly careful? Tears of the old self-pity pricked his eyes. There’s no rest for me in England, he thought I’d better go to France and beg. It was not the begging, however, which raised his heart in instant revolt at the suggestion, but the idea of ceding once and forever all sight and sound of Elizabeth.
The sun dived with sudden decision into night from the edge of a distant down. The faint gold powder which had strewn the air was brushed away leaving a still, transparent silver. Andrews walked back and forth with puzzled, straying steps that he might keep warm till a deeper darkness came. He looked every now and then at the castle which dominated Lewes from its hill. When it should be cloaked from sight he would go down. It seemed an endless while and it was very cold. The prospect of returning that night
