urted out suddenly, "chuckin' full of wra-ath, he is. Well, there!"

My courage failed that evening. I spent it at the coastguard station,
where they gave me bread and cheese and some awful cider. I passed the
kitchen as I came back. A fire was still burning there, and two figures,
misty in the darkness, flitted about with stealthy laughter like spirits
afraid of being detected in a carnal-meal. They were Pasiance and Mrs.
Hopgood; and so charming was the smell of eggs and bacon, and they had
such an air of tender enjoyment of this dark revel, that I stifled many
pangs, as I crept hungry up to bed.

In the middle of the night I woke and heard what I thought was
screaming; then it sounded like wind in trees, then like the distant
shaking of a tambourine, with the high singing of a human voice.
Suddenly it stopped--two long notes came wailing out like sobs--then
utter stillness; and though I listened for an hour or more there was no
other sound ....

IV

"4th August.

.... For three days after I wrote last, nothing at all happened here.
I spent the mornings on the cliff reading, and watching the sun-sparks
raining on the sea. It's grand up there with the gorse all round, the
gulls basking on the rocks, the partridges calling in the corn, and
now and then a young hawk overhead. The afternoons I spent out in
the orchard. The usual routine goes on at the farm all the
time--cow-milking, bread-baking, John Ford riding in and out, Pasiance
in her garden stripping lavender, talking to the farm hands; and the
smell of clover, and cows and hay; the sound of hens and pigs and
pigeons, the soft drawl of voices, the dull thud of the farm carts; and
day by day the apples getting redder. Then, last Monday, Pasiance was
away from sunrise till sunset--nobody saw her go--nobody knew where
she had gone. It was a wonderful, strange day, a sky of silver-grey and
blue, with a drift of wind-clouds, all the trees sighing a little,
the sea heaving in a long, low swell, the animals restless, the birds
silent, except the gulls with their old man's laughter and kitten's
mewing.

A something wild was in the air; it seemed to sweep across the downs and
combe, into the very house, like a passionate tune that comes drifting
to your ears when you're sleepy. But who would have thought the absence
of that girl for a few hours could have wrought such havoc! We were like
uneasy spirits; Mrs. Hopgood's apple cheeks seemed positively to wither
b