would not fit with common sense and the habits of civilized society;
something from an Arab's tent or a Highland glen. Then Tod came up
behind and put his hands on his son's shoulders.

"Come!" he said; "milk's spilt."

"All right!" said Derek gruffly, and he went to the door.

Felix made Nedda a sign and she slipped out after him.

CHAPTER XXII

Nedda, her blue head-gear trailing, followed along at the boy's side
while he passed through the orchard and two fields; and when he threw
himself down under an ash-tree she, too, subsided, waiting for him to
notice her.

"I am here," she said at last.

At that ironic little speech Derek sat up.

"It'll kill him," he said.

"But--to burn things, Derek! To light horrible cruel flames, and burn
things, even if they aren't alive!"

Derek said through his teeth:

"It's I who did it! If I'd never talked to him he'd have been like the
others. They were taking him in a cart, like a calf."

Nedda got possession of his hand and held it tight.

That was a bitter and frightening hour under the faintly rustling
ash-tree, while the wind sprinkled over her flakes of the may blossom,
just past its prime. Love seemed now so little a thing, seemed to have
lost warmth and power, seemed like a suppliant outside a door. Why did
trouble come like this the moment one felt deeply?

The church bell was tolling; they could see the little congregation pass
across the churchyard into that weekly dream they knew too well. And
presently the drone emerged, mingling with the voices outside, of sighing
trees and trickling water, of the rub of wings, birds' songs, and the
callings of beasts everywhere beneath the sky.

In spite of suffering because love was not the first emotion in his
heart, the girl could only feel he was right not to be loving her; that
she ought to be glad of what was eating up all else within him. It was
ungenerous, unworthy, to want to be loved at such a moment. Yet she
could not help it! This was her first experience of the eternal tug
between self and the loved one pulled in the hearts of lovers. Would she
ever come to feel happy when he was just doing what he thought was right?
And she drew a little away from him; then perceived that unwittingly she
had done the right thing, for he at once tried to take her hand again.
And this was her first lesson, too, in the nature of man. If she did not
give her hand, he wanted it! But she was not one of those