t of screen for his Sunday
visits to the Manor Farm. Thus he made a habit of long walks after dark
on week-days and of unpunctuality at meals. To avoid being seen by the
cottagers he approached the house from behind, by the bridge over the
mill-water and through the orchard to the back door. Luckily the estate
provided him with an irreproachable and permanent pretext for seeing
Anne.

For Jerrold, going about with Anne over the Manor Farm, had conceived a
profound passion for his seven hundred acres. At last he had come into
his inheritance; and if it was Anne Severn who showed him how to use it,
so that he could never separate his love of it from his love of her, the
land had an interest of its own that soon excited and absorbed him. He
determined to take up farming seriously and look after his estate
himself when Anne had Sutton's farm. Anne would teach him all she knew,
and he could finish up with a year or two at the Agricultural College in
Cirencester. He had found the work he most wanted to do, the work he
believed he could do best. All the better if it brought him every day
this irreproachable companionship with Anne. His conscience was appeased
by Maisie's coldness, and Jerrold told himself that the life he led now
was the best possible life for a sane man. His mind was clear and keen;
his body was splendidly fit; his love for Anne was perfect, his
companionship with her was perfect, their understanding of each other
was perfect. They would never be tired of each other and never bored. He
rode with her over the hills and tramped with her through the furrows in
all weathers.

At times he would approach her through some sense, sharper than sight or
touch, that gave him her inmost immaterial essence. She would be sitting
quietly in a room or standing in a field when suddenly he would be thus
aware of her. These moments had a reality and certainty more poignant
even than the moment of his passion.

At last they ceased to think about their danger. They felt, ironically,
that they were protected by the legend that made Anne and Colin lovers.
In the eyes of the Kimbers and Nanny Sutton and the vicar's wife, and
the Corbetts and Hawtreys and Markhams, Jerrold was the stern guardian
of his brother's morals. They were saying now that Captain Fielding had
put a stop to the whole disgraceful affair; he had forced Colin to leave
the Manor Farm house; and he had taken over the estate in order to keep
an eye on his brother