aying in their warm, candle-lit room behind him,
and he thought of Miriam reading in her tall-back chair before dinner,
for Evensong would be over by now. Yes, Evensong would be over, he
remembered penitently, and he ought to have gone this evening, which was
the vigil of St. Mark and of his birthday. At this moment he caught
sight of the Wych Maries signpost black against that cold green sky. He
gave a momentary start, because seen thus the signpost had a human look;
and when his heart beat normally it was roused again, this time by the
sight of a human form indeed, the form of Esther, the wind blowing her
skirts before her, hurrying along the road to which the signpost so
crookedly pointed. Mark who had been climbing higher and higher now felt
the power of that wind full on his cheeks. It was as if it had found
what it wanted, for it no longer whispered and lisped among the boughs
of the blackthorn, but blew fiercely over the wide pastures, driving
Esther before it, cutting through Mark like a sword. By the time he had
reached the signpost she had disappeared in the wood.

Mark asked himself why she was going to Rushbrooke Grange.

"To Rushbrooke Grange," he said aloud. "Why should I think she is going
to Rushbrooke Grange?"

Though even in this desolate place he would not say it aloud, the answer
came back from this very afternoon when somebody had mentioned casually
that the Squire was come home again. Mark half turned to follow Esther,
but in the moment of turning he set his face resolutely in the direction
of home. If Esther were really on her way to meet Will Starling, he
would do more harm than good by appearing to pry.

Esther was the flaw in Mark's crystal clear world. When a year ago they
had quarrelled over his avowed dislike of Will Starling, she had gone
back to her solitary walks and he conscious, painfully conscious, that
she regarded him as a young prig, had with that foolish pride of youth
resolved to be so far as she was concerned what she supposed him to be.
His admiration for the Greys and the Fords had driven her into jeering
at them; throughout the year Mark and she had been scarcely polite to
each other even in public. The Rector and Miriam probably excused Mark's
rudeness whenever he let himself give way to it, because their sister
did not spare either of them, and they were made aware with exasperating
insistence of the dullness of the country and of the dreariness of
everybody who lived in