e hurried away from the sound.

"Never, never will I go there again. Why did you ask me to go there? I
would sooner have met a thousand Brydones than have been in that house."

"Pauline," he protested, "you really do sometimes encourage yourself to
be overwrought."

"Guy, don't lecture me," she said, turning upon him fiercely.

"Well, don't let the whole of Wychford see that you're in a temper," he
retorted. "People haven't yet got over the idea of us two as a natural
curiosity of the neighborhood. I don't want ... and I don't suppose
you're very anxious for these yokels to discuss our quarrels in the
post-office to-night?"

"I don't mind what anybody does," said Pauline, desperately. "I only
want to be out of this wind--this wind."

She was rather glad that Guy, perhaps to punish her for the loss of
control, said he must go and work instead of coming back to tea at the
Rectory. It strangely gave her the ability to smile at him and be in
their parting herself again, whereas had he come back with her she knew
that she would still have felt irritated. Her smile may have abashed his
ill-humor, for he seemed inclined to change his mind about the need for
work; but she would not let him, and hurried towards home at the back of
the west wind. Should she ask her sisters if they had seen her in the
Abbey? It would be better to wait until they said something first. It
would really be best to say nothing about this afternoon. Tea was in the
nursery that day, for the Rector was holding some sort of colloquy in
the drawing-room, which he always used for parochial business, because
he dreaded having his seeds scattered by the awkward fingers of the
flock.

Tea had not come in yet, and Pauline took her familiar seat in the
window, glad to be out of the wind, but pondering a little mournfully
the lawn mottled with leaves, and the lily-pond that was being seamed
and crinkled by every gust that skated across the surface. When the
others arrived Pauline knew that she turned round to greet them
defiantly, although she would have given much not to feel excuseful like
this.

"You didn't see Monica and me?" Margaret asked.

"Only after you'd gone too far for us to call to you," Pauline answered,
nervously assuring herself that Margaret had not tried to "catch her
out," as Janet would have said.

"We had taken the short cut through the Abbey," Monica explained.

Pauline felt that what Monica had meant to say was: "We did not spy