ts abounding hassocks. Even the removal of the Lion and the Unicorn,
and the transformation of her comfortable, Established religion into a
disquieting mystery had not made her allegiance falter. She still loved
Brodnyx church, even now when hassocks were no longer its chief
ecclesiastical ornament. She thought regretfully of her empty place and
shamefully of her neighbours' comments on it.

It was a sunless day, with grey clouds hanging over a dull green marsh,
streaked with channels of green water. The air was still and heavy with
the scent of may and meadowsweet and ripening hayseed. They drove as far
as the edges of Dunge Marsh, then turned eastward along the shingle road
which runs across the root of the Ness to Lydd. The little mare's
chocolate flanks were all a-sweat, and Joanna thought it better to bait
at Lydd and rest during the heat of the day.

"You'd never think it was Whitsun," said Albert, looking out of the inn
window at the sunny, empty street. "You don't seem to get much of a
crowd down here. Rum old place, ain't it?"

Already Joanna was beginning to notice a difference between his outlook
and Martin's.

"What d'you do with yourself out here all day?" he continued.

"I've plenty to do."

"Well, it seems to agree with you--I never saw anyone look finer. You're
reelly a wonder, old thing."

He picked up the large hand lying on the table-cloth and kissed it back
and palm. From any other man, even from Martin himself, she would have
received the caress quite simply, been proud and contented, but now it
brought her into a strange trouble. She leaned towards him, falling
upon his shoulder, her face against his neck. She wanted his kisses, and
he gave them to her.

At about three o'clock they set out again. The sun was high now, but the
air was cooler, for it had lost its stillness and blew in rippling gusts
from the sea. Joanna resolved not to go on to New Romney, as they had
waited too long at Lydd; so she took the road that goes to Ivychurch,
past Midley chapel, one of the ruined shrines of the monks of
Canterbury--grey walls huddled against a white tower of hawthorn in
which the voices of the birds tinkled like little bells.

She was now beginning to feel more happy and self-confident but she was
still preoccupied, though with a new situation. They had now been alone
together for five hours, and Albert had not said a word about the
marriage on which her hopes were set. Her ideas as to her own ri