er. "It's heavy,
George."

"I chose a heavy one."

"Have you had it in your pocket all the time?"

"All the time."

He and she had been alike in cherishing a ring, but when she reached
home she would take Zebedee's from its place and hide it safely. She
could not give it back to him: she could not wear it now.

"I must go," she said, and freed herself.

He kissed the banded finger. "Be quick and come back and let me see you
wearing it again."

It weighted her, and she went more slowly down the road, feeling that
the new weight was a symbol, and when she looked back and saw George
standing where she had left him, she uttered a small cry he could not
hear and ran to him.

"George, you must always love me now. You--I--"

"What is it, love?"

"Nothing. Let me go. Good-bye," she said, and walked on at her slow
pace. Light winds brought summer smells to her, clouds made lakes of
shadow on the moor, and here, where few trees grew and little traffic
passed, there were no dusty leaves to tell of summer's age; yet, in the
air, there was a smell of flowers changing to fruit.

She passed the gorse bushes in their second blossoming, and the moor,
stretched before her, was as her life promised to be: it was monotonous
in its bright colouring, quiet and serene, broad-bosomed for its
children. Old sheep looked up at her as she went by, and she saw herself
in some relationship to them. They were the sport of men, and so was
she, yet perhaps God had some care of them and her. It was she and the
great God of whose existence she was dimly sure who had to contrive
honourable life for her, and the one to whom she had yearly prayed must
remain in his own place, veiled by the smoke of the red fires, a
survival and a link like the remembrance of her virginity.

So young in years, so wise in experience of the soul, she thought there
was little more for her to learn, but acquaintance with birth and death
awaited her: they were like beacons to be lighted on her path, and she
had no fear of them.

CHAPTER XXXVII

She did her shopping in her unhurried, careful way, and went on to the
outfitter who made John's corduroy trousers. Clothes that looked as if
they were made of cardboard hung outside the shop; unyielding coats,
waistcoats and trousers seemed to be glued against the door: stockings,
suspended by their gaudy tops, flaunted stiff toes in the breeze, and
piles of more manageable garments were massed on chairs inside,