n't want them to
see me here now because I'm coming back in the evening. We shall have to
be awfully careful how we see each other. I say--I _may_ come this
evening, mayn't I?"

"Yes."

"Same time as last Sunday? You'll be alone then?"

"Yes." Her voice sounded as if it didn't belong to her. As if some other
person stronger than she, were answering for her.

When he had gone she called after him.

"Don't forget to tell Colin about the lamb."

She went upstairs and slipped off her farm clothes and put on the
brown-silk frock she had worn when he last came to her. She looked in
the glass and was glad that she was beautiful.

iv

She began to count the minutes and the hours till Jerrold came. Dinner
time passed.

All afternoon she was restless and excited. She wandered from room to
room, as if she were looking for something she couldn't find. She went
to and fro between the dining-room and kitchen to see how the lamb was
getting on. Wrapped in its blanket, it lay asleep after its meal of
milk. Its body was warm to the touch and under its soft ribs she could
feel the beating of its heart. It would live.

Two o'clock. She took up the novel she had been reading before Jerrold
had come and tried to get back into it. Ten minutes passed. She had read
through three pages without taking in a word. Her mind went back and
back to Jerrold, to the morning of today, to the evening of last Sunday,
going over and over the things they had said to each other; seeing
Jerrold again, with every movement, every gesture, the sudden shining
and darkening of his eyes, and his tense drawn look of pain. How she
must have hurt him!

It was his looking at her like that, as if she had hurt him--Anne never
could hold out against other people's unhappiness.

Half past two.

She kicked off her shoes, put on her thick boots and her coat, and
walked two miles up the road towards Medlicote, for no reason but that
she couldn't sit still. It was not four o'clock when she got back. She
went into the kitchen and looked at the lamb again.

She thought: Supposing Colin comes down to see it when Jerrold's here?
But he wouldn't come. Jerrold would take care of that. Or supposing the
Kimbers stayed in? They wouldn't. They never did. And if they did, why
not? Why shouldn't Jerrold come to see her?

Four o'clock struck. She had the fire lit in the big upstairs
sitting-room. Tea was brought to her there. Mrs. Kimber glanced at her
where she lay b