But the letter he had caught sight of on Owen’s table had not been posted. “After all, what is the good in writing a disagreeable letter to her? If she is going away with Ulick what does it matter under what trees they sat?” Yet everything else seemed to him nothing compared with the fact that she and Ulick had pursued their courtship under the limes facing the Serpentine; and Owen wondered at himself. “We are ruled by trifles,” he said; all the same he did not send the letter.
And that night Owen and Ulick bade each other goodbye for the last time.
“Perhaps I shall see you later on in the year; in about six months’ time we shall be back in London.”
Owen could not bring himself to ask if Evelyn had accepted the engagement—what was the good? To ask would be a humiliation, and he would kn
