. She hoped the police would not forget them either.
But Hastings' offer to stay till the girls came back from the
Millsborough crowds and bands at about nine o'clock quite eased her mind.
And meanwhile she and Hastings, as had been agreed, kept their anxieties
from Rachel.

Rachel went off at twelve o'clock in her khaki suit, driving a spirited
young horse in a high cart, which was filled with farm produce. She was
to take early dinner with some new friends, and then to go and look at a
Jersey cow which Janet coveted, in a farm on the other side of
Millsborough.

"Don't wait tea for me," she said to Janet, "I shall get some somewhere."
And then with a smile to them both she was off. Janet stood looking after
her, lost in a painful uncertainty. "Can't you let it alone?" Lord
Melbourne was accustomed to say suavely to those members of the Cabinet
who brought him grievances or scandals that wanted seeing to. One half of
Janet's mind was saying, "Can't you let it alone?" to the other half.

XI

The daylight had all gone when Rachel at last got into her cart in the
yard of the Rose and Thistle at Millsborough and took the reins. But
there was a faint moonrise struggling through the mist in which the
little town and countryside were shrouded. And in the town, with its
laughing and singing crowds, its bright shop windows, its moist,
straggling flags, the mist, lying gently over the old houses, the moving
people, the flashes and streamers of light, was extraordinarily romantic
and beautifying.

Rachel drove slowly through the streets, delighting in the noise and
excitement, in the sheer new pleasure of everything, the world--human
beings--living--the end of the war. And out among the fields, and in the
country road, the November sun was still beautiful; what with the pearly
mist, and the purple shapes of the forest-covered hills. She had been
much made of in Millsborough. People were anxious to talk to her, to
invite her, to do business with her. Her engagement, she perceived, had
made her doubly interesting. She was going to be prosperous, to
succeed--and all the world smiled upon her.

So that her pulses were running fast as she reached Ipscombe, where, in
the mild fog, a few groups were standing about, and a few doors were
open. And now--there was home!--in front of her. And--Heavens! what had
Janet done? Rachel pulled up the horse, and sat enchanted, looking at the
farm. For there it lay, pricked out in ligh