into Lydd, and in the afternoon took him
inland, to Ruckinge and Warehorne. These drives were another
reconstruction of her life with Martin, though now she no longer loved
Albert only in his second-coming aspect. She loved him passionately and
childishly for himself--the free spring of his hair from his forehead,
not merely because it had also been Martin's but because it was his--the
impudence as well as the softness of his eyes, the sulkiness as well as
the sensitiveness of his mouth, the unlike as well as the like. She
loved his quick, Cockney accent, his Cockney oaths when he forgot
himself--the way he always said "Yeyss" instead of "Yes"--his little
assumptions of vanity in socks and tie. She loved a queer blend of
Albert and Martin, the real and the imaginary, substance and dream.

As for him, he was enjoying himself. Driving about the country with a
fine woman like Joanna, with privileges continually on the increase, was
satisfactory even if no more than an interlude. "Where shall we go
to-morrow?" he asked her, as they sat in the parlour after dinner,
leaving the garden to Ellen and Tip.

"To-morrow? Why, that's Sunday."

"But can't we go anywhere on Sunday?"

"To church, of course."

"But won't you take me out for another lovely drive? I was hoping we
could go out all day to-morrow. It's going to be ever so fine."

"Maybe, but I was brought up to go to church on Sundays, and on Whit
Sunday of all other Sundays."

"But this Sunday's going to be different from all other Sundays--and
from all other Whit Sundays...."

He looked at her meaningly out of his bold, melting eyes, and she
surrendered. She could not deny him in this matter any more than in most
others.... She could not disappoint him any more than she could
disappoint a child. He should have his drive--she would take him over to
New Romney, even though it was written "Neither thou nor thine ox nor
thine ass nor the stranger that is within thy gates."

Sec.21

So the next morning when Brodnyx bells were ringing in the east she
drove off through Pedlinge on her way to Broomhill level. She felt
rather uneasy and ashamed, especially when she passed the church-going
people. It was the first time in her life that she had voluntarily
missed going to church--for hundreds of Sundays she had walked along
that flat white lick of road, her big Prayer Book in her hand, and had
gone under that ancient porch to kneel in her huge cattle-pen pew with
i