d.

A great fire burned in Mildred Caniper's room, another in the kitchen;
the only buds on the poplars were frozen white ones, and the whiteness
of the lawn was pitted with Halkett's footsteps. Since the first day of
snow he had climbed the garden wall close to the kitchen door so that he
should not make another trail, but the original one still gaped there,
and Helen wished more snow would fall and hide the tracks. She saw them
every morning when she went into her own room to dress, and they were
deep and black, like open mouths begging the clouds for food.

One day, John, looking from the kitchen window, asked who had been
tramping about the garden.

"Doesn't it look ugly?" Helen said. "I can't bear snow when it's
blotched with black. Is there going to be more of it?"

"I think so."

"Are your lambs all right?"

"We haven't lost one. Lily's a wonder with them. We've a nursery in our
kitchen. Come and see it." He went out, and she heard him on the crisp
snow.

"Now he'll mix the trail," she thought happily. "And I might have done
it myself. I think I'm growing stupid. But it will be John and George
when I get up in the morning: that's better than George and me."

John came back and spoke gravely. "I find those footsteps go right
across the moor towards Halkett's Farm."

"Of course! George made them."

"Oh, you knew?"

"Yes. I couldn't imagine Jim had done it, could I?"

"What did he come for?"

"He sat by the fire and smoked."

"You'd better not encourage him."

"I don't."

"Be careful!--What are you laughing at?"

"That old story of the kiss!"

"It makes me mad."

"He doesn't try to kiss me, John. I shouldn't be horrified if he did.
You needn't be afraid for me."

"All right. It's your affair. Want any wood chopped?"

"Rupert did a stack for me."

"This is pretty dull for you, isn't it? When does--"

She interrupted. "At the end of next week, I think." She was somewhat
tired of answering the question.

That night, as she sat with George, he said, "When we're like this, I
wish you'd wear your wedding-ring."

"I said I wouldn't."

"It couldn't do any harm."

"It could--to me."

"You talk as if it's dirt," he said.

"Oh, no, I know it's gold! Let's keep our bargains and talk of
something else. Tell me what you have been doing today."

His face reddened to a colour that obscured his comeliness. "You can't
get round me like that."

"What do you mean?" She lifted her head so that