d to her so much cleverer
and more vigorous than herself in all matters of ordinary life. Only in
the region of religious experience did Janet know herself the superior.
But Rachel had never made any outward sign that she cared in the least to
know more of that region, whether in Janet or other people. She had held
entirely aloof from it. But self-reproach--moral suffering--are two of
the keys that lead to it. And both were evident here. Janet's heart went
out to her friend.

"When is he coming?"

"To-morrow evening. I dare say he'll give me up."

Janet marvelled at the absence of self-assertion--the touch of
despair--in words and tone. So it had gone as deep as this! She blamed
herself for lack of perception. An ordinary love-affair, about to end
in an ordinary way--that was how it had appeared to her. And suddenly it
seemed to her she had stumbled upon what might be tragedy.

No, no--there should be no tragedy! She put her arms round Rachel.

"My dear, he won't give you up! As if I hadn't seen! He worships the
ground you tread upon!"

Rachel said nothing. She let her face rest on Janet's shoulder. When she
raised it, it was wet. But she kissed Janet quietly, and went away
without another word.

VIII

Four grown-ups and a child were gathered in the living-room of Halsey's
cottage. The cottage was old like its tenant and had all the
inconveniences of age; but it was more spacious than the modern cottage
often is, since it and its neighbours represented a surviving fragment
from an old Jacobean house--a house of gentlefolks--which had once stood
on the site. Most of the house had been pulled down, but Colonel
Shepherd's grandfather had retained part of it, and turned it into two
cottages--known as 1 and 2 Ipscombe Place--which for all their drawbacks
were much in demand in the village, and conferred a certain distinction
on their occupants. Mrs. Halsey's living room possessed a Tudor
mantelpiece in moulded brick, into which a small modern kitchener had
been barbarously fitted; and three fine beams with a little incised
ornament ran across the ceiling.

Mrs. Halsey had not long cleared away the tea, and brought in a paraffin
lamp, small but cheerful. She was a middle-aged woman, much younger than
her husband--with an ironic half-dreamy eye, and a native intelligence
much superior to her surroundings. She was suffering from a chronic
abscess in the neck, which had strange periodic swellings and
subsiden