For Gabriel Syme had found in the heart of that sun-splashed wood what many modern painters had found there.

He had found the thing which the modern people call Impressionism, which is another name for that final scepticism which can find no floor to the universe.
As a man in an evil dream strains himself to scream and wake, Syme strove with a sudden effort to fling off this last and worst of his fancies.

With two impatient strides he overtook the man in the Marquis's straw hat, the man whom he had come to address as Ratcliffe.

In a voice exaggeratively loud and cheerful, he broke the bottomless silence and made conversation.
"May I ask," he said, "where on earth we are all going to ?" So genuine had been the doubts of his soul, that he was quite glad to hear his companion speak in an easy, human voice.
"We must get down through the town of Lancy to the sea," he said.

"I think that part of the country is least likely to be with them." "What can you mean by all this ?" cried Syme.