He had taken it all as his due, with an underlying belief that, if he chose to make love to her again, he could blind her to all else in the world.

Hurt vanity and egotism and jealousy had prevented him from luring her back to that fine atmosphere in which he had hypnotised her so few years ago.

But suddenly, as he watched the swans swimming in the pond below, a new sense of approaching loss, all that Hylda had meant in his march and progress, came upon him; and he hastened to return to Hamley.
Getting out of the train at Heddington, he made up his mind to walk home by the road that David had taken on his return from Egypt, and he left word at the station that he would send for his luggage.
His first objective was Soolsby's hut, and, long before he reached it, darkness had fallen.

From a light shining through the crack of the blind he knew that Soolsby was at home.

He opened the door and entered without knocking.