ack on the couch, her hands hanging loose in her lap.

"You're tired after all your week's work, miss?"

"A little."

"And I dare say you miss Mr. Colin?"

"Yes, I miss him very much."

"No doubt he'll be coming down to see the lamb."

"Oh yes; he'll want to see the lamb."

"And you're sure you don't mind me and Kimber going out, miss?"

"Not a bit. I like you to go."

"It's a wonder to me," said Mrs. Kimber, "as you're not afraid to be
left alone in this 'ere house. But Kimber says, Miss Anne, she isn't
afraid of nothing. And I don't suppose you are, what with going out to
the war and all."

"There's not much to be afraid of here."

"That there isn't. Not unless 'tis people's nasty tongues."

"_They_ don't frighten me, Mrs. Kimber."

"No, miss. I should think not indeed. And no reason why they should."

And Mrs. Kimber left her.

A sound of pails clanking came from the yard. That was Minchin, the cow
man, going from the dairy to the cow sheds. Milking time, then. It must
be half past four.

Five o'clock, the slamming of the front door, the click of the gate, and
the Kimbers' voices in the road below as they went towards Wyck.

Anne was alone.

Only half an hour and Jerrold would be with her. The beating of her
heart was her measure of time now. What would have happened before he
had gone again? She didn't know. She didn't try to know. It was enough
that she knew herself, and Jerrold; that she hadn't humbugged herself or
him, pretending that their passion was anything but what it was. She saw
it clearly in its reality. They couldn't go on as they were. In the end
something must happen. They were being drawn to each other,
irresistibly, inevitably, nearer and nearer, and Anne knew that a moment
would come when she would give herself to him. But that it would come
today or to-morrow or at any fore-appointed time she did not know. It
would come, if it came at all, when she was not looking for it. She had
no purpose in her, no will to make it come.

She couldn't think. It was no use trying to. The thumping of her heart
beat down her thoughts. Her brain swam in a warm darkness. Every now and
then names drifted to her out of the darkness: Colin--Eliot--Maisie.

Maisie. Only a name, a sound that haunted her always, like a vague,
sweet perfume from an unknown place. But it forced her to think.

What about Maisie? It would have been awful to take Jerrold away from
Maisie, if she cared for him. But she w