tood and kissed his wife
the very day he brought her home to Worsted Skeynes, and though he did
not see the parallel between her and the birch-tree that some poor
imaginative creature might have drawn, yet was he thinking of that long
past afternoon. But the spaniel John was not thinking of it; his
recollection was too dim, for he had been at that time twenty-eight years
short of being born.

Mr. Pendyce sat there long with his horse and with his dog, and from out
the blackness of the spaniel John, who was more than less asleep, there
shone at times an eye turned on his master like some devoted star. The
sun, shining too, gilded the stem of the birch-tree. The birds and
beasts began their evening stir all through the undergrowth, and rabbits,
popping out into the ride, looked with surprise at the spaniel John, and
popped in back again. They knew that men with horses had no guns, but
could not bring themselves to trust that black and hairy thing whose nose
so twitched whenever they appeared. The gnats came out to dance, and at
their dancing, every sound and scent and shape became the sounds and
scents and shapes of evening; and there was evening in the Squire's
heart.

Slowly and stiffly he got up from the log and mounted to ride home. It
would be just as lonely when he got there, but a house is better than a
wood, where the gnats dance, the birds and creatures stir and stir, and
shadows lengthen; where the sun steals upwards on the tree-stems, and all
is careless of its owner, Man.

It was past seven o'clock when he went to his study. There was a lady
standing at the window, and Mr. Pendyce said:

"I beg your pardon?"

The lady turned; it was his wife. The Squire stopped with a hoarse
sound, and stood silent, covering his eyes with his hand.

CHAPTER VIII

ACUTE ATTACK OF 'PENDYCITIS'

Mrs. Pendyce felt very faint when she hurried away from Chelsea. She had
passed through hours of great emotion, and eaten nothing.

Like sunset clouds or the colours in mother-o'-pearl, so, it is written,
shall be the moods of men--interwoven as the threads of an embroidery,
less certain than an April day, yet with a rhythm of their own that never
fails, and no one can quite scan.

A single cup of tea on her way home, and her spirit revived. It seemed
suddenly as if there had been a great ado about nothing! As if someone
had known how stupid men could be, and been playing a fantasia on that
stupidity. But thi