"Coming for a drink?" Frank asked me with a jerk of his head towards the
extemporised buffet.

"Well, no, thanks. I think not," I said, seeking the relief afforded by
the women's absence; although, now, that I could indulge my desire without
restraint, the longing to gape had surprisingly vanished.

"Going to bed?" Jervaise suggested.

"Yes. Bed's the best place, just now," I lied.

"Right oh! Good-night, old chap," Ronnie said effusively.

I pretended to be going upstairs and they did not wait for me to
disappear. As soon as they had left the Hall, I sneaked down again,
recovered from the cloak-room the light overcoat I had worn on our
expedition to the Farm--I have no idea to whom that overcoat
belonged--borrowed a cap, and let myself out stealthily by the front door.

As I quietly shut the door behind me, a delicious whiff of night-stock
drifted by me, as if it had waited there for all those long hours seeking
entrance to the stale, dry air of the Hall.

* * * * *

And it must have been, I think, that scent of night-stock which gave me
the sense of a completed episode, or first act, as I stood alone, at last,
on the gravel sweep before the Hall. Already the darkness was lifting. The
dawn was coming high up in the sky, a sign of fair weather.