ance, and at their dancing, every sound and scent and shape became the
sounds and scents and shapes of evening; and there was evening in the
Squire's heart.

Slowly and stiffly he got up from the log and mounted to ride home. It
would be just as lonely when he got there, but a house is better than a
wood, where the gnats dance, the birds and creatures stir and stir, and
shadows lengthen; where the sun steals upwards on the tree-stems, and
all is careless of its owner, Man.

It was past seven o'clock when he went to his study. There was a lady
standing at the window, and Mr. Pendyce said:

"I beg your pardon?"

The lady turned; it was his wife. The Squire stopped with a hoarse
sound, and stood silent, covering his eyes with his hand.

CHAPTER VIII

ACUTE ATTACK OF 'PENDYCITIS'

Mrs. Pendyce felt very faint when she hurried away from Chelsea. She had
passed through hours of great emotion, and eaten nothing.

Like sunset clouds or the colours in mother-o'-pearl, so, it is written,
shall be the moods of men--interwoven as the threads of an embroidery,
less certain than an April day, yet with a rhythm of their own that
never fails, and no one can quite scan.

A single cup of tea on her way home, and her spirit revived. It seemed
suddenly as if there had been a great ado about nothing! As if someone
had known how stupid men could be, and been playing a fantasia on that
stupidity. But this gaiety of spirit soon died away, confronted by the
problem of what she should do next.

She reached her hotel without making a decision. She sat down in the
reading-room to write to Gregory, and while she sat there with her pen
in her hand a dreadful temptation came over her to say bitter things to
him, because by not seeing people as they were he had brought all this
upon them. But she had so little practice in saying bitter things that
she could not think of any that were nice enough, and in the end she was
obliged to leave them out. After finishing and sending off the note she
felt better. And it came to her suddenly that, if she packed at once,
there was just time to catch the 5.55 to Worsted Skeynes.

As in leaving her home, so in returning, she followed her instinct, and
her instinct told her to avoid unnecessary fuss and suffering.

The decrepit station fly, mouldy and smelling of stables, bore her
almost lovingly towards the Hall. Its old driver, clean-faced, cheery,
somewhat like a bird, drove her almost furiousl