g herself to death. I never saw her look so seedy. I'm
sorry Jerrold let her have that farm."

"So am I," said Adeline. "I never saw Jerry look so seedy, either.
Maisie's been behaving like a perfect idiot. If she wanted them to go
off together she couldn't have done better."

"You don't imagine," John said, "that's what they're after?"

"How do I know what they're after? You never can tell with people like
Jerrold and Anne. They're both utterly reckless. They don't care who
suffers so long as they get what they want. If Anne had the morals of
a--of a mouse, she'd clear out."

"I think," John said, "you're mistaken. Anne isn't like that.... I hope
you haven't said anything to Maisie?"

Adeline made a face at him, as much as to say, "What do you take me
for?" She lifted up her charming, wilful face and powdered it carefully.

iii

The earth smelt of the coming rain. All night the trees had whispered of
rain coming to-morrow. Now they waited.

At noon the wind dropped. Thick clouds, the colour of dirty sheep's
wool, packed tight by their own movement, roofed the sky and walled it
round, hanging close to the horizon. A slight heaving and swelling in
the grey mass packed it tighter. It was pregnant with rain. Here and
there a steaming vapour broke from it as if puffed out by some immense
interior commotion. Thin tissues detached themselves and hung like a
frayed hem, lengthening, streaming to the hilltops in the west.

Anne was going up the fields towards the Manor and Jerrold was coming
down towards the Manor Farm. They met at the plantation as the first big
drops fell.

He called out to her, "I say, you oughtn't to be out a day like this."

Anne had been ill all January with a slight touch of pleurisy after a
cold that she had taken no care of.

"I'm going to see Maisie."

"You're _not_," he said. "It's going to rain like fury."

"Maisie knows I don't mind rain," Anne said, and laughed.

"Maisie'd have a fit if she knew you were out in it. Look, how it's
coming down over there."

Westwards and northwards the round roof and walls of cloud were shaken
and the black rain hung sheeted between sky and earth. Overhead the dark
tissues thinned out and lengthened. The fir trees quivered; they gave
out slight creaking, crackling noises as the rain came down. It poured
off each of the sloping fir branches like a jet from a tap.

"We must make a dash for it," Jerrold said. And they ran together,
laughing, down