len on their
knees their faces covered each with a single hand; but her left hand
and his right hung at their sides. They prayed a little longer than any
others and, on rising, sang the hymn a little louder.

3

No paper came on Sundays--not even the local paper, which had so
long and so nobly done its bit with headlines to win the war. No news
whatever came, of men blown up, to enliven the hush of the hot July
afternoon, or the sense of drugging--which followed Aunt Thirza's Sunday
lunch. Some slept, some thought they were awake; but Noel and young
Morland walked upward through the woods towards a high common of heath
and furze, crowned by what was known as Kestrel rocks. Between these two
young people no actual word of love had yet been spoken. Their lovering
had advanced by glance and touch alone.

Young Morland was a school and college friend of the two Pierson boys
now at the front. He had no home of his own, for his parents were dead;
and this was not his first visit to Kestrel. Arriving three weeks ago,
for his final leave before he should go out, he had found a girl sitting
in a little wagonette outside the station, and had known his fate at
once. But who knows when Noel fell in love? She was--one supposes--just
ready for that sensation. For the last two years she had been at one of
those high-class finishing establishments where, in spite of the healthy
curriculum, perhaps because of it, there is ever an undercurrent of
interest in the opposing sex; and not even the gravest efforts to
eliminate instinct are quite successful. The disappearance of every
young male thing into the maw of the military machine put a premium on
instinct. The thoughts of Noel and her school companions were turned,
perforce, to that which, in pre-war freedom of opportunity they could
afford to regard as of secondary interest. Love and Marriage and
Motherhood, fixed as the lot of women by the countless ages, were
threatened for these young creatures. They not unnaturally pursued what
they felt to be receding.

When young Morland showed, by following her about with his eyes, what
was happening to him, Noel was pleased. From being pleased, she became a
little excited; from being excited she became dreamy. Then, about a week
before her father's arrival, she secretly began to follow the young man
about with her eyes; became capricious too, and a little cruel. If
there had been another young man to favour--but there was not; and she