with the blazing eyes had leaped at him.

"I been waiting for 'ee, and I've cotched 'ee at last!" he shouted.

* * * * *

Johnny Everard, hands in pockets, mooning about his stock and rickyard,
this calm Sunday morning, never guessed how near he had been to
receiving a visitor.

He had not seen Joan since that night when, with Ellice beside him, he
had seen her and the man at the door of Mrs. Bonner's cottage.

He had meant to go, but had not gone. He was due there to-day; this very
morning Helen would expect him. He had never missed spending a Sunday
with them since the engagement; and yet he felt loath to go, and did not
know why.

He had seen Connie off to Church. Con never missed. Ellice had not gone.
Ellice was perhaps a little less constant than Con. He wondered where
the girl was now, and, thinking of her, the frown on his face was
smoothed away.

Always there was wonder, a sense of unreality in his mind; a feeling
that somehow, in some way, he was wrong. He must be wrong. Strangely
enough, these last few days he had thought more constantly of Ellice
than of Joan. He had pictured her again and again to himself--a little,
white-clad, barefooted figure standing against the dusky background of
the hallway, framed by the open door. He remembered the colour in her
cheeks, and her brave championship of the other woman; but he
remembered most of all the look in her eyes when she had said to him,
"Please, please don't!"

"I shall never kiss her again," he said, and said it to himself, and
knew as he said it that he was denying himself the thing for which now
he longed.

He had kissed Joan's cold cheek, he had kissed her hand, but her lips
had not been for him. He had wondered once if they ever would be, and he
had cared a great deal; now he ceased to wonder.

"I shall never kiss Gipsy again," he thought, and, turning, saw her.

"So you--you didn't go to Church, Gipsy?"

"I thought you had gone to Starden."

They stood and looked at one another.

"No. I don't think I shall go to Starden to-day."

"But they expect you."

"I--I don't think I shall go to-day, Gipsy. Shall we go for a walk
across the fields?"

"You ought to go to Starden," she said. "She--she will expect you."

But a spirit of reckless defiance had come to him.

"She won't miss me if I don't go."

"No, she won't miss you," the girl said softly, and her voice shook.

"So--so come with me, Gipsy girl."