a great stew-pan hanging on the wall particularly caught the eye. Janet
was humming to herself--one of the war tunes--when Rachel entered.

"Janet, I want to speak to you."

Janet looked up--startled. And yet something in her was not startled! She
had been strangely expectant all these days. It seemed to her she had
already seen Rachel come in like that--had already heard her say those
words.

She shut up the hay-box, and came gently forward.

"Here, Rachel?"

"You've nearly done?"

"In a few minutes. If you'll go into the sitting-room, I'll join you
directly."

And while she hurried through the rest of her work, her mind was really
running forward in prophecy. She more or less knew what she was going
to hear. And as she closed the kitchen door behind her there was in her a
tremulous sense as though of some sacred responsibility.

Rachel was crouching over the fire as usual, and Janet drew up a stool
beside her, and laid a hand on her knee.

"What is it?"

Rachel turned.

"I told you one secret, Janet, the other day. Now this is another. And
it's--" She flushed, and broke off, beginning again after a moment--"I
didn't mean to tell you, or any one. I can't make up my mind whether I'm
bound to or not. But I want you to advise me, Janet. I'm awfully
troubled."

And suddenly, she slipped to the floor, and laid her head against Janet's
knees, hiding her face.

Janet bent over her, instinctively caressing the brown hair. She was only
three or four years older than Rachel, but she looked much older, and the
close linen cap she wore on butter-making afternoons, and had not yet
removed, gave her a gently austere look, like that of a religious.

"Tell me--I'll do my best."

"In the first place," said Rachel, in a low voice, "who do you think was
the ghost?"

"What do you mean?"

"The ghost--was Roger Delane!"

Janet uttered an exclamation of surprise and horror--while fact after
fact rushed together in her mind, fitting into one explanatory whole. Why
had she never thought of that possibility, among all the others?

"Oh, Rachel, have you ever seen him?"

"Twice. He stopped me on the road, when I was coming back from
Millsborough on Armistice Day. And he came to see me the day after. You
remember you were astonished to find I had sent the girls to the
Shepherds' dance? I did it to get them out of the way--and if you hadn't
said you were going to that service I should have had to invent something
to send