annoyance upon the person nearest to us; and at this unlooked-for
corroboration of his unpleasant vision, the gentleman said rudely,
'You're not such a fool as to believe such confounded trash as that, are
you?'

'No sir, I'm no fool,' said the ploughman sulkily, starting his horses
to go up the furrow. In vain the other called out an attempted apology,
and tried to delay him; the accustomed shout and clank of the chains was
all he got in answer. The birds that had settled upon the field rose
again at the return of the horses, and curveted in a long fluttering
line above their heads. The man on the road turned reluctantly away,
and, too perplexed almost for thought, walked off to catch his
home-bound train.

CHAPTER II

The man of science, Skelton by name, passed some seven days in business
and pleasure at home among men of his own class, and then, impelled by
an intolerable curiosity, he went to seek the home of the woman with
whom he had so strange a meeting. Concerning the mad delusion from which
he had suffered in her presence, his mind would give him no rest. Some
further effort he must make to understand the cause of an experience
which he could not reason from his memory. The effort might be futile;
he could form no plan of action; yet he found himself again upon the
highroad which led from the nearest station to the village of West
Chilton.

The autumn leaf that had bedecked the trees was lying upon the ground,
its brightness soiled and tarnished. The cloud rack hung above, a vault
of gloom in which the upper winds coursed sadly.

'This is the field,' said Skelton within himself. 'The ploughman has
finished his work, but the crows are still flapping about it. I wonder
if they are the same crows! That is the clump of weeds by which she sat;
it was as red as flame then, but now it is colourless as the cinders of
a fire that is gone out.'

His words were like straws, showing the current of his thoughts.

Just then in the west the cloud masses in the horizon, being moved by
the winds, rent asunder, exposing the land to the yellow blaze of the
setting sun. The distant hills stood out against the glow in richer
blue, and far and near the fields took brighter hues--warm brown of
earth ready to yield the next harvest, yellow of stubble lands at rest,
bright green of slopes that fed the moving cows. There were luminous
shadows, too, that gathered instantly in the copses, as if they were the
forms of dry