nd I don't advise you to try. No decent barrister
would touch your case, it's so rotten."

"Not half so rotten as you'll look when it's in all the papers."

"You can't frighten me that way."

"Can't I? I suppose you'll say you were looking, poor darling, if you do
bring your silly old action. Only please don't do it till he's quite
well, or he'll be ill again...I think that's tea going in. Will you go
down?"

They went down. Tea was laid in the big bare hall. The small round oak
table brought them close together. Anne waited on Queenie with every
appearance of polite attention. Queenie ate and drank in long, fierce
silences; for her hunger was even more imperious than her pride.

"I don't _want_ to eat your food," she said at last. "I'm only doing it
because I'm starving. I dined with Colin's mother last night. It was the
first dinner I've eaten since I went to the war."

"You needn't feel unhappy about it," said Anne. "It's Eliot's house and
Jerrold's food. How's Cutler?"

"Much the same as when you saw him." Queenie answered quietly, but her
face was red.

"And that Johnnie--what was his name?--who took my place?"

Queenie's flush darkened. She was holding her mouth so tight that the
thin red line of the lips faded.

"Noel Fenwick," said Anne, suddenly remembering.

"What about him?" Queenie's throat moved as if she swallowed something
big and hard.

"Is he there still?"

"He was when I left."

Her angry, defiant eyes were fixed on the open doorway. You could see
she was waiting for Colin, ready to fall on him and tear him as soon as
he came in.

"Am I to see Colin or not?" she said as she rose.

"Have you anything to say to him?"

"Only what I've said to you."

"Then you won't see him. In fact I think you'd better not see him at
all."

"You mean he funks it?"

"I funk it for him. He isn't well enough to be raged at and threatened
with proceedings. It'll upset him horribly and I don't see what good
it'll do you."

"No more do I. I'm not going to live with him after this. You can tell
him that. Tell him I don't want to see him or speak to him again."

"I see. You just came down to make a row."

"You don't suppose I came down to stay with you two?"

Queenie was so far from coming down to stay that she had taken rooms for
the night at the White Hart in Wyck. Anne drove her there.

ii

Two and a half years passed. Anne's work on the farm filled up her days
and marked them. Her times w