owly.

They had passed out of the range of the lantern. He could not see her
face, could only just hear her voice.

"No, not yet, dear. My last long letter should reach her next week."

Her hand lay close in his as they groped their way to the door. When he
unlatched it they came out into the light of a stormy sunset. The rain
had momentarily ceased, and there were fiery lines of crimson burning
their way through the black cloud masses in the western sky. The red
light caught Rachel's face and hair. But even so, it seemed to him that
she was pale.

"I say--you've done too much threshing!" he said with energy. "Don't do
any more--get an extra man."

"Can't find one," she said, laughing at him, but rather languidly. "I'll
go and get the tea ready."

He went off to wash, and when he entered the sitting-room a little
later, she too was fresh and neat again, in a new frock of some soft
bluish-green stuff, which pleased his eye amazingly. Outside, the sunset
was dying rapidly, and at a sign from her, he drew down the blinds over
the two windows, and pulled the curtains close. He stood at the window
looking at the hill-side for a moment with the blind in his hand. He was
recalling the face he had seen, of which neither he nor any one else had
yet said a word to Rachel; recalling also his talk with one of the
Millsborough police the day before. "Nothing more heard of him, Captain.
Oh, we get queer people about these hills sometimes. It's a very
lonely bit of country. Why, a year ago, we were hunting a couple of
German prisoners about these commons for days!"

"Any more ghosts?" he said lightly, glancing round at Rachel, as he drew
the curtains across.

"Not that I know of. Come and have your tea."

He took a cup from her hand, and leaning against the chimney surveyed the
room with a radiant face. Then he stooped over her and said:--

"I love this little room! Don't you?"

She made a restless movement.

"I don't know. Why do you love it?"

"As if you didn't know!" Their eyes met, his intense and
passionate,--hers, less easy to read. "Darling, I have some other news
for you. I think you'll like it--though it'll separate us for a little."

And drawing a letter from his pocket, he handed it to her. It was a
letter from the American Headquarters, offering him immediate work in the
American Intelligence Department at Coblentz.

"Some friends of mine there, seem to have been getting busy about me. You
see I know Ger