i took my leave of lady ladislaw when the departure of evesham broke the party into dispersing fragments. i started down the drive towards the rectory and then vaulted the railings by the paddock and struck across beyond the mere. i could not go home with the immense burthen of thought and new ideas and emotions that had come upon me. i felt confused and shattered to incoherence by the new quality of mary's atmosphere. i turned my steps towards the wilder, lonelier part of the park beyond the killing wood, and lay down in a wide space of grass between two divergent thickets of bracken, and remained there for a very long time.

there it was in the park that for the first time i pitted myself against life upon a definite issue, and prepared my first experience of defeat. "i will have her," i said, hammering at the turf with my fist. "i will. i do not care if i give all my life...."

then i lay still and bit the sweetness out of joints of grass, and presently thought and planned.