to kill him in my mind, so that I shan't
think of him any more. I'm not thinking. I only wanted you to know."

"Does anybody else know?"

She shook her head.

"Well--don't you let them."

Gwinnie slid to her feet and went to the looking-glass. She stood there a
minute, pinning closer the crushed bosses of her hair. Then she turned.

"What are you going to do with that walking-tour johnnie?"

"John--Conway? You couldn't do anything with him if you tried. He's miles
beyond all that."

"All _what_?"

"The rotten things people do. The rotten things they think. You're safe
with him, Gwinnie. Safe. Safe. You've only to look at him."

"I _have_ looked at him. Whatever you do, don't _tell_ him, Sharlie."

III

Charlotte sat on the top of the slope in the field below Barrow Farm.
John Conway lay at her feet. The tall beeches stood round them in an
unclosed ring.

Through the opening she could see the farmhouse, three ball-topped
gables, the middle one advancing, the front built out there in a huge
door-place that carried a cross windowed room under its roof.

Low heavy-browed mullions; the panes, black shining slits in the grey and
gold of the stone. All their rooms. Hers and Gwinnie's under the near
gable by the fir-trees, Mr. and Mrs. Burton's under the far gable by the
elms, John's by itself in the middle, jutting out.

She could see the shallow garden dammed up to the house out of the green
field by its wall, spilling trails of mauve campanula, brimming with pink
phlox and white phlox, the blue spires of the lupins piercing up through
the froth.

Sunday evening half an hour before milking-time. From September
nineteen-thirteen to December--to March nineteen-fourteen, to June--she
had been at the farm nine months. June--May--April. This time three
months ago John had come.

In the bottom of the field, at the corner by the yard-gate, under the
elms, she could see Gwinnie astride over the tilted bucket, feeding the
calves. It was Gwinnie's turn.

She heard the house door open and shut. The Burtons came down the flagged
path between the lavender bushes, leaving them to their peace before
milking time.

Looking down she saw John's eyes blinking up at her through their lashes.
His chest showed a red-brown V in the open neck of his sweater. He had
been quiet a long time. His voice came up out of his quietness, sudden
and queer.

"Keep your head like that one minute--looking down. I want your
eyelid