they entered. All the time he went on with his discussion.
He lit the gas, mended the fire, and brought her some cakes from the
pantry. She sat on the sofa, quietly, with a plate on her knee. She wore
a large white hat with some pinkish flowers. It was a cheap hat, but
he liked it. Her face beneath was still and pensive, golden-brown and
ruddy. Always her ears were hid in her short curls. She watched him.

She liked him on Sundays. Then he wore a dark suit that showed the lithe
movement of his body. There was a clean, clear-cut look about him.
He went on with his thinking to her. Suddenly he reached for a Bible.
Miriam liked the way he reached up--so sharp, straight to the mark. He
turned the pages quickly, and read her a chapter of St. John. As he sat
in the armchair reading, intent, his voice only thinking, she felt as if
he were using her unconsciously as a man uses his tools at some work he
is bent on. She loved it. And the wistfulness of his voice was like a
reaching to something, and it was as if she were what he reached with.
She sat back on the sofa away from him, and yet feeling herself the very
instrument his hand grasped. It gave her great pleasure.

Then he began to falter and to get self-conscious. And when he came to
the verse, "A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow because
her hour is come", he missed it out. Miriam had felt him growing
uncomfortable. She shrank when the well-known words did not follow. He
went on reading, but she did not hear. A grief and shame made her bend
her head. Six months ago he would have read it simply. Now there was a
scotch in his running with her. Now she felt there was really something
hostile between them, something of which they were ashamed.

She ate her cake mechanically. He tried to go on with his argument, but
could not get back the right note. Soon Edgar came in. Mrs. Morel had
gone to her friends'. The three set off to Willey Farm.

Miriam brooded over his split with her. There was something else he
wanted. He could not be satisfied; he could give her no peace. There was
between them now always a ground for strife. She wanted to prove him.
She believed that his chief need in life was herself. If she could prove
it, both to herself and to him, the rest might go; she could simply
trust to the future.

So in May she asked him to come to Willey Farm and meet Mrs. Dawes.
There was something he hankered after. She saw him, whenever they spoke
of Clara Dawes, rou