Still
beneath the resentment and wounded pride which Michael's going had
caused her flickered the spark of an ideal utterly at variance with the
whole tenor of the teaching of poor Diane's last embittered days--the
ideal of womanhood which had been Michael's. And the impulse which had
bade her leave Storran so abruptly was born of the one-time resolution
she had made to become the sort of woman Michael would wish his wife to
be.

She felt oddly perturbed when at last she reached the seclusion of her
chintzy bedroom underneath the sloping roof. A vague sense of shame
assailed her. The game, as between herself and Dan, was hardly a
fair one, after all, and she could well picture the cold contempt in
Michael's eyes had he been looking on at it.

Though he had no right to disapprove of her now! He had forfeited
that right--if he had ever had it--when he went away without a word
of farewell--without giving her even the chance to appeal against the
judgment which, by his very going, he had silently pronounced against
her.

For months, now, she had been a prey to a conflicting jumble of
emotions--the pain and hurt pride which Michael's departure had
occasioned her, the craving for anything that might serve to distract
her thoughts and keep them from straying back to those few vibrant
meetings with him, and deep down within her an aching, restless wonder
as to whether she would ever see him again.

With an effort she dismissed the fresh tangle of thought provoked by
the morning's brief scene with Dan Storran, and, dressing quickly,
went downstairs to the mid-day dinner which was the order of things at
Stockleigh.

At first the solid repast, with its plentitude of good farmhouse fare
partaken of during the hottest hour of the day, had somewhat appalled
Magda. But now she had grown quite accustomed to the appearance of a
roast joint or of a smoking, home-cured ham, attended by a variety of
country vegetables and followed by fruit tart and clotted cream.

Although she herself, as befitted a woman whose "figure was her
fortune" according to Lady Arabella, partook extremely sparingly of this
hospitable meal, it somehow pleased her to see big Dan Storran come in
from his work in the fields and do full justice to the substantial
fare. To Magda, ultra-modern and over-civilised as she was, there was
something refreshing in the simple and primitive usages of Stockleigh
Farm and its master--this man who toiled, and satisfied his