‘You’re only just in time,’ said Mr. Braceweight, switching off the personal note as if he, too, felt the danger. ‘I’m being dis­charged from here tomorrow. I shall go down to my place in Sussex and stay there for the rest of the summer. As soon as you’re free to come down, you’ll find everything ready for you. But I suppose you’ll have to give a week or two’s notice here?’

‘No,’ said Charles with unnecessary emphasis. ‘I can leave straight away. I never signed anything to say I’d stay here: I just lose a week’s pay if I go without notice, and—’ then he remem­bered that he was talking to his prospective employer and so ought not to sound too carefree about leaving without notice, and added, ‘the fact is that things have cropped up that make my position here rather difficult, for myself and others. I can leave when you leave tomorrow.’

‘That’s lucky, because I was wondering who would drive me down to Sussex.’

‘It’s definite then, Sir? I’m employed?’

Mr. Braceweight nodded.

‘From tomorrow.’

‘Look,’ he said to Rosa. ‘Something’s happened. I’m going away.’

‘When will you be back?’ she asked, not understanding him.

‘I shan’t,’ he said, hating himself. ‘Not back, ever.’

She turned to face him. Her vivacity drained away, leaving only pallor and emptiness.

‘Tell me why.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Tell me. You must tell me.’

‘Rosa, my dear, my dear, I wish, it’s all so crazy, I wish I could—’

‘Is it something I’ve done?’

‘No.’

‘Is it something I haven’t done, then? Something you wanted me to?’

‘There’s nothing either of us has done. It isn’t anything either of us could possibly have avoided.’

‘You mustn’t treat me like this,’ she said, deadly calm. ‘You can’t do this to a girl. Not to a decent girl. I’m not trying to hold you, I only want to know where I went wrong with you.’

‘Oh, God, Rosa, I tell you you never went wrong. You were always sweet and right. You were yourself.’

‘What was it, then?’

He faced her. His brain was dry and empty. He wanted to explain to her that it was not his fault. He had not meant to injure her, he had only thought, mistakenly, that he was the kind of man who could bring her happiness and help her to profit by her own particular kind of life-giving simplicity. Now she faced him across the dirty dishes on the table, with nothing left in her face and bearing except numbness and pain.