hough with difficulty, all
her impulses to continue her search for evidence. It was hard to do
so, for all through the evening Gabrielle and Arthur were together in
her presence, and she found it impossible not to watch them out of the
corner of her eye or strain her ears to catch what they were saying;
but she realised that the least slip at this stage might ruin her
chances of success, and devoted her attention or as much of it as she
could muster, to Considine. Next morning, with a sense of successful
strategy, she returned to Overton by an early train.

The rest of the week was for her a period of acute suspense. For
Gabrielle and Arthur it was one of delightful anticipation. On Friday
at midday Considine drove them to Totnes station, the scene of their
last parting, and set them on their journey. They watched him standing
serious on the platform as the train went out, and when they lost sight
of his tall figure at a curve in the line, it seemed to them as though
the last possible shadow had been lifted from them. In the first part
of their journey a soft rain hid the shapes of the country through
which they passed, so soft that they could keep the windows open, and
yet so dense as to give them a feeling of delicious loneliness, for
they could see nothing but the grassed embankments starred with
primroses. All through the Devon valleys and over the turf moors of
Somerset this weather held. It was not until they had changed at
Bristol and crept under the escarpment of the lower Cotswolds that the
air cleared.

At a junction below the southern end of Bredon they emerged in an air
that this vast sheeting of fine moisture had washed into a state of
brilliant clarity. The evening through which they drove to Overton was
full of birdsong and sweet with the smell of young and tender green.
There was not a breath of wind, but the sky was cool, and into it the
old trees lifted their branches with an air of youth and vernal
strength. When the road climbed, scattered woodlands stretched beneath
them in clear and comely contours. A hovering kestrel hung poised like
a spider swinging from a thread. She swooped, and her chestnut back
was lit into flame. The great elms that gird the village of Overton
received them. Arthur touched up the horse as they swung past the
church and a row of cottages with long trim gardens.

Mrs. Payne, who was working on the herbaceous border in front of the
house, heard the grating of