of a sense of evil, as of a vision of good. Goodness had been
brought near to Rachel in the personality--the tender self-forgetting
trust--of George Ellesborough. It was goodness, not fear--goodness,
unconscious of any threatened wrong--that had pierced her heart. Then a
thought came to her. _Janet!_--Janet whose pure and loving life beside
her made yet another element in the spiritual forces that were pressing
upon her.

She sprang to her feet. She would tell Janet everything--put her poor
secret--her all--in Janet's hands.

XIII

It was again a very still and misty night,--extraordinarily mild for the
time of year. A singular brooding silence held all the woodlands above
Great End Farm. There was not a breath of wind. Every dead branch that
fell, every bird that moved, every mouse scratching among the fallen
beech leaves, produced sounds disproportionately clear and startling, and
for the moment there would be a rustle of disturbance, as though
something or some one, in the forest heart, took alarm. Then the deep
waters of quiet closed again, and everything--except that watching
presence--slept.

The hut in Denman Wood, which had formerly played a hospitable part as
the scene of many a Gargantuan luncheon to Colonel Shepherd's shooting
parties, had long been an abandoned spot. All the Colonel's keepers under
fifty had gone to fight; and there was left only an old head keeper, with
one decrepit helper, who shot the scanty game which still survived on
strict business principles, to eke out the household rations of the big
house. The Ipscombe woods were rarely visited. They were a long way from
the keeper's cottage, and the old man, depressed by the difference
between war and pre-war conditions, found it quite enough to potter round
the stubbles and turnips of the home farm when game had to be shot.

The paths leading through the underwood to the hut were now in these four
years largely over-grown. A place more hidden and forgotten it would
have been difficult to find. And for this reason, combined with its
neighbourhood to Rachel Henderson's farm, Roger Delane had chosen to
inhabit it.

It was the third night after his interview with his former wife. He
reached the hut after dark, by various by-paths over the wide commons
stretching between it and X--the station at which he now generally
alighted. He carried in his pocket some evening newspapers, a new
anthology, and a novel. Owing to an injection of mor