Edmund had gone back to Halifax.
On the whole Derek was not sorry, for he had felt Edmund's presence as a restraint, if not an actual rebuke. Fawnie's table manners had offended Edmund, also her untidy finery, and her habit of popping morsels of food into the baby's mouth at meal time which, often as not, he put out again to hang on the frill of his bib. When Edmund had met Derek coming out of Fawnie's room he had turned his face away with a frown; more than once he had commented on Derek's carelessness in dress, and his need of a respectable haircut. Now he was gone, and Derek felt that this rather ignoble affair of his marriage might jolt on unhindered to whatever end might be.
As a matter of fact he was far from unhappy. Since his meeting with Grace he enjoyed a new serenity of spirit. Sitting alone on the beach at night with his pipe, he contemplated the lovely fact that she loved him—had refused Edmund because of him—perhaps Ramsey.
He would recall the moment when he had stood in the stable watching the meeting of the two horses, the warmed saddle across his arm. He would see her on the threshold sweet as the early sunshine. He would feel again that tremor of joy that had shaken him when they had confessed their love. He had not met her since, but Mr. Jerrold had been over several times, and had told of their happy rides along the shore road. They rode west as a
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