fixed on him.
The words seemed to him incoherent, out of touch somehow even with their
tragic conversation. But his first passing bewilderment was lost in pity
and passion. He stopped, took her hand, and kissed it. He came nearer.

But again she drew back.

"There's Janet!" she said, "we can't talk any more."

For she had caught sight of Janet in the farm-yard, leading her bicycle.

"Can you meet me to-morrow evening--on the Common?" he said. "I could be
there about six."

She frowned a little.

"Is it worth while?"

"I beg you!" he said huskily.

"Very well--I'll come. We shall be just friends, please."

"But, of course, I'll tell you more--if you wish."

Janet's voice and step were heard in the passage. How Ellesborough got
through the next ten minutes he never remembered. When they were over, he
found himself rushing through the cool and silence of the autumn night,
thankful for this sheltering nature in which to hide his trouble, his
deep, deep distress.

VII

The October night rang stormily round Great End Farm. The northwest wind
rushing over the miniature pass just beyond the farm, where the road
dropped from the level of the upland in which Ipscombe lay, to the level
of the plain, was blowing fiercely on the square of buildings which stood
naked and undefended against weather from that quarter of the heaven,
while protected by the hills and the woods from the northeast. And
mingled with the noisy or wailing gusts came the shrieking from time to
time of one of the little brown owls that are now multiplying so fast in
the English midlands.

The noise of the storm and the clamour of the owl were not the cause of
Rachel's wakefulness; but they tended to make it more feverish and
irritable. Every now and then she would throw off the bed-clothes, and
sit up with her hands round her knees, a white and rigid figure lit by
the solitary candle beside her. Then again she would feel the chill of
the autumn night, and crouch down shivering among the bed-clothes, pining
for a sleep that would not come. Instead of sleep, she could do nothing
but rehearse the scene with Ellesborough again and again. She watched the
alterations in his face--she heard the changes in his voice--as she told
her story. She was now as sorry for him as for herself! The tears came
flooding into her eyes as she thought of him. In her selfish fears of his
anger she had forgotten his suffering. But the first true love of her
life