bigger job at the Manor."

"Oh, Master Jerrold, if you would, it'd be a kindness, I'm sure. And
Kimber 'e deserves it, the way they've stuck to Miss Anne."

"He does indeed. It's pretty decent of them. I'll see about that before
I go."

"Thank you, sir. Sutton and me thought maybe you'd do something for him,
else I shouldn't have spoken. And if there's anything I can do for Miss
Anne I'll do it. I've always looked on her as one of you. But 'tis a
pity, all the same."

"You mustn't say that, Nanny. I tell you it's all perfectly right."

"Well, I shall never say as 'tisn't. No, nor think it. You can trust me
for that, Master Jerrold."

He thought: Poor old Nanny. She lies like a brick.

vii

He said to himself that he would never know the truth about Anne and
Colin. If he went to them and asked them he would be no nearer knowing.
They would have to lie to him to save each other. In any case, his
mother had made it clear to him that as long as Anne had to look after
Colin he couldn't ask them. If they were innocent their innocence must
be left undisturbed. If they were not innocent, well--he had lost the
right to know it. Besides, he was sure, as sure as if they had told him.

He knew how it would be. Colin's wife would come home and she would
divorce Colin and he would marry Anne. So far as Jerrold could see, that
was his brother's only chance of happiness and sanity.

As for himself, there was nothing he could do now but clear out and
leave them.

And, as he had no desire to go back to his mother and hear about Anne
and Colin all over again, he went down to the Durhams' in Yorkshire for
the rest of his leave.

He hadn't been there five days before he and Maisie were engaged; and
before the two weeks were up he had married her.

X

ELIOT

i

Eliot stood in the porch of the Manor Farm house. There was nobody there
to greet him. Behind him on the oak table in the hall the wire he had
sent lay unopened.

It was midday in June.

All round the place the air was sweet with the smell of the mown hay,
and from the Broad Pasture there came the rattle and throb of the
mowing-machines.

Eliot went down the road and through the gate into the hay-field. Colin
and Anne were there. Anne at the top of the field drove the mower,
mounted up on the shell-shaped iron seat, white against the blue sky.
Colin at the bottom, slender and tall above the big revolving wheel,
drove the rake. The tedding machine, d