For it meant complete severance, a separation not to be measured by miles alone, but by the nature of the work, and the comrades, and even the character of the vegetation.

He went to bed in doubt, thinking that the morning might bring him counsel.

It brought him a letter from Sylvia instead.
The letter was long; it was written in haste, it was written in great distress, so that words which were rather unkind were written down.

But the message of the letter was clear.

Chayne was not to come again to the House of the Running Water; nor to the little house in London when she returned to it.