wanted to disappear again. Qualms and
emotions concerning his abandoned family overcame him. The early,
delicate autumn affected him. He took a train to the Midlands.

And again, just after dark, he strolled with his little bag across the
field which lay at the end of his garden. It had been mown, and the
grass was already growing long. He stood and looked at the line of back
windows, lighted once more. He smelled the scents of autumn, phlox and
moist old vegetation and corn in sheaf. A nostalgia which was half at
least revulsion affected him. The place, the home, at once fascinated
and revolted him.

Sitting in his shed, he scrutinised his garden carefully, in the
starlight. There were two rows of beans, rather disshevelled. Near at
hand the marrow plants sprawled from their old bed. He could detect
the perfume of a few carnations. He wondered who it was had planted
the garden, during his long absence. Anyhow, there it was, planted and
fruited and waning into autumn.

The blind was not drawn. It was eight o'clock. The children were going
to bed. Aaron waited in his shed, his bowels stirred with violent but
only half-admitted emotions. There was his wife, slim and graceful,
holding a little mug to the baby's mouth. And the baby was drinking. She
looked lonely. Wild emotions attacked his heart. There was going to be a
wild and emotional reconciliation.

Was there? It seemed like something fearful and imminent. A passion
arose in him, a craving for the violent emotional reconciliation. He
waited impatiently for the children to be gone to bed, gnawed with
restless desire.

He heard the clock strike nine, then half-past, from the village behind.
The children would be asleep. His wife was sitting sewing some little
frock. He went lingering down the garden path, stooping to lift the
fallen carnations, to see how they were. There were many flowers, but
small. He broke one off, then threw it away. The golden rod was out.
Even in the little lawn there were asters, as of old.

His wife started to listen, hearing his step. He was filled with a
violent conflict of tenderness, like a sickness. He hesitated, tapping
at the door, and entered. His wife started to her feet, at bay.

"What have you come for!" was her involuntary ejaculation.

But he, with the familiar odd jerk of his head towards the garden, asked
with a faint smile:

"Who planted the garden?"

And he felt himself dropping into the twang of the vernacular, w