r man?"

She drew back. "No, you know I told you that I should never do that.
But he'll never come back nor want me again and I'm very fond of you,
Paul--fonder than I thought. Don't spoil it all now by going too fast--"

"Going too fast!" he laughed. "Why, I haven't gone any way at all. I
haven't got you anywhere. I can hardly touch you. You're away from me
all the time. You're strange--different from every one ..."

"I don't know anything about women. I've learnt a lot about myself this
week. It isn't going to be as easy as I thought."

She went up to him, close to him, and said almost desperately: "We MUST
make this all right, Paul. We can if we try. I know we can."

He kissed her gently with his old kindness. "What a baby you are. You
didn't know what you were in for ... Oh, we'll make it all right."

They sat close together then and drank their tea. After all, Grace
would be here in an hour! They both felt a kind of relief that they
would no longer be alone.

Grace would be here in an hour! Strange how throughout all these last
days Maggie had been looking forward to that event with dread. There
was no definite reason for fear; in London Grace had been kindness
itself and had shown real affection for Maggie. Within the last week
she had written two very affectionate letters. What was this, then,
that hung and hovered? It was in the very air of the house and the
garden and the place. Grace had left her mark upon everything and every
one, even upon the meagre person of Mitch the dog. Especially upon
Mitch, a miserable creeping fox-terrier with no spirits and a tendency
to tremble all over when you called him. He had attached himself to
Maggie, which was strange, because animals were not, as a rule,
interested in her. Mitch followed her about, looking up at her with a
yellow supplicating eye. She didn't like him and she would be glad when
Grace collected him again--but why did he tremble?

She realised, in the way that she had of seeing further than her nose,
that Grace was going to affect the whole of her relations with Paul,
and, indeed, all her future life. She had not realised that in London.
Grace had seemed harmless there and unimportant. Already here in
Skeaton she seemed to stand for a whole scheme of life.

Maggie had moved and altered a good many of the things in the house.
She had discovered a small attic, and into this she had piled pell-mell
a number of photographs, cheap reproductions, cushions,