a few minutes the shower
abated. Mrs. Furze could not say anything to her daughter; she could not
decently appear to force Charlie on her by rebuking her for not
responding to his generosity, but she was disappointed and embittered.

On the following morning Catharine announced her intention of going to
Chapel Farm for a few days. Her mother remonstrated, but she knew she
would have to yield, and Catharine went. Mrs. Bellamy poured forth the
pent-up tale of three months--gossip we may call it if we wish to be
contemptuous; but what is gossip? A couple of neighbours stand at the
garden gate on a summer's evening and tell the news of the parish. They
discuss the inconsistency of the parson, the stony-heartedness of the
farmer, the behaviour of this young woman and that young man; and what
better could they do? They certainly deal with what they
understand--something genuinely within their own circle and experience;
and there is nothing to them in politics, British or Babylonian, of more
importance. There is no better conversation than talk about Smith,
Brown, and Harris, male and female, about Spot the terrier or Juno the
mare. Catharine had many questions to answer about the school, but Mr.
Cardew's name was not once mentioned.

One afternoon, late in August, Catharine had gone with the dog down to
the riverside, her favourite haunt. Clouds, massive, white, sharply
outlined, betokening thunder, lay on the horizon in a long line; the fish
were active; great chub rose, and every now and then a scurrying dimple
on the pool showed that the jack and the perch were busy. It was a day
full of heat, a day of exultation, for it proclaimed that the sun was
alive; it was a day on which to forget winter with its doubts, its
despairs, and its indistinguishable grey; it was a day on which to
believe in immortality. Catharine was at that happy age when summer has
power to warm the brain; it passed into her blood and created in her
simple, uncontaminated bliss. She sat down close to an alder which
overhung the bank. It was curious, but so it was, that her thoughts
suddenly turned from the water and the thunderclouds and the blazing heat
to Mr. Cardew, and it is still more strange that at that moment she saw
him coming along the towing-path. In a minute he was at her side, but
before he reached her she had risen.

"Good morning, Miss Furze."

"Mr. Cardew! What brings you here?"

"I have been here several times; I ofte