ife of unfulfilled content. He
had shown her a vision of herself as complete woman, mother and wife, of
a Joanna Godden bigger than Ansdore. She could no longer be the Joanna
Godden whose highest ambition was to be admitted member of the Farmers'
Club. He had also woken in her certain simple cravings--for a man's
strong arm round her and his shoulder under her cheek. She had now to
make the humiliating discovery that the husk of such a need can remain
after the creating spirit had left it. In the course of the next year
she had one or two small, rather undignified flirtations with
neighbouring farmers--there was young Gain over at Botolph's Bridge, and
Ernest Noakes of Belgar. They did not last long, and she finally
abandoned both in disgust, but a side of her, always active
unconsciously, was now disturbingly awake, requiring more concrete
satisfactions than the veiled, self-deceiving episode of Socknersh.

She was ashamed of this. And it made her withdraw from comforts she
might have had. She never went to North Farthing House, where she could
have talked about Martin with the one person who--as it happened--would
have understood her treacheries. Lawrence came to see her once at the
end of September, but she was gruff and silent. She recoiled from his
efforts to break the barriers between life and death; he wanted her to
give Martin her thoughts and her prayers just as if he were alive. But
she "didn't hold with praying for the dead"--the Lion and the Unicorn
would certainly disapprove of such an act; and Martin was now robed in
white, with a crown on his head and a harp in his hand and a new song in
his mouth--he had no need of the prayers of Joanna Godden's unfaithful
lips. As for her thoughts, by the same token she could not think of him
as he was now; that radiant being in glistening white was beyond the
soft approaches of imagination--robed and crowned, he could scarcely be
expected to remember himself in a tweed suit and muddy boots kissing a
flushed and hot Joanna on the lonely innings by Beggar's Bush. No,
Martin was gone--gone beyond thought and prayer--gone to sing hymns for
ever and ever--he who could never abide them on earth--gone to forget
Joanna in the company of angels--pictured uncomfortably by her as
females, who would be sure to tell him that she had let Thomas Gain kiss
her in the barn over at Botolph's Bridge....

She could not think of him as he was now, remote and white, and she
could bear stil