But if the boy was puzzled, he was, at least, discreet.

He put nothing into words: merely walked on in silence, and left the man to his thoughts and the nightingales to their melody.
And Cleek was unusually thoughtful from that period onward; speaking hardly a word through all the journey home.

For now that the events which had occupied his mind for the past two or three days were over and done with, his memory harked back to those things which had to do with his own affairs, and he caught himself wondering how matters had gone with Ailsa Lorne; which of the two positions--the English one or the French--she had finally elected to apply for; and if time had as yet softened the shock of that disclosure made in the mist and darkness at Hampstead Heath.
He had, of course, heard nothing of her since that time; and the days he had spent at Richmond had utterly precluded the possibility of giving himself that small pleasure--so often indulged in--of adopting a safe disguise, prowling about the neighbourhood where she lived until she should come forth upon one errand or another, and then following her, unsuspected.
That she could have taken the knowledge of what he once had been in no other way than she had done; that to such a woman, such a man must at the first blush be an object of abhorrence--a thing to be put out of her life as completely and as expeditiously as possible--he fully realised; yet, at bottom, he was conscious of a hope that Time--even so little as had passed--might lend a softening influence that should lead eventually to Pity, and from that to a day when the word Forgiveness might be spoken.
He wanted that forgiveness--the soul of the man needed it, as parched plants need water.

He had not climbed up out of himself without some struggle, some moments when he wavered between what he had become, and what Nature had written that he was meant to be; for no Soul is purged all in a moment, no man may conquer himself with just one solitary fight.

He needed her forgiveness, the thought of her, the hope of her, to rivet his armour for the long, brave fight.