His friends, idling on the lawn, hailed him. He passed by them quickly
without answering, without so much as a glance at them over his
shoulder. Arriving at the rose-garden, he stopped and took out his pipe;
then suddenly changed his mind, and turned back again by another path.
There was no certainty, at that hour of the day, of his being left alone
in the rose-garden. He had a fierce and hungry longing to be by himself;
he felt as if he could have been the death of any body who came and
spoke to him at that moment. With his head down and his brows knit
heavily, he followed the path to see what it ended in. It ended in a
wicket-gate which led into a kitchen-garden. Here he was well out of
the way of interruption: there was nothing to attract visitors in the
kitchen-garden. He went on to a walnut-tree planted in the middle of the
inclosure, with a wooden bench and a broad strip of turf running round
it. After first looking about him, he seated himself and lit his pipe.
"I wish it was done!" he said.
He sat, with his elbows on his knees, smoking and thinking. Before long
the restlessness that had got possession of him forced him to his feet
again.
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