y; "but he'm like all men, naught but
a cheild that cries for the moon, and a woman as has a heart would
sooner see a man getten' what he wants, even when 'tes bad for 'en, than
see him eaten' his soul away with longing. There's a deal of
satisfaction in maken' our own unhappiness, and a man has that to
console him."

"You are a Job's comforter," cried Blanche, rustling out of the room.
She had heard the well-known click of the little gate, and she fled
upstairs to be alone with her thoughts and her letter for a few moments
before meeting Ishmael. She no longer doubted she was going to break off
her engagement and leave for home the next day, but she still had to
decide on the type of Blanche who should appear to him and what her
manner and aspect should be. A tender grieving, shown in a pale face and
quiet eyes, would probably be best ... and she could always introduce a
maternal note in the very accent of her "dear boy...."

CHAPTER XV

BLOWN HUSKS

Not for nothing had Ishmael given way to the incursion of the personal,
always before so jealously kept out of his life. His desire for
impersonality now only kept by him in a fierce wish to blot out his own
as much as possible, to sink it in that of the beloved, to drown in
hers. He was obsessed by Blanche, she filled the world for him from rim
to rim; and though with his mind he still admitted the absurdity of it,
could even look at his own state dispassionately, he yet had to admit
the fact. It was some time since he had been near Boase, because,
although the Parson never so much as hinted it, Ishmael knew he was not
in sympathy with him over this. Annie he felt he could hate for her
antagonism, which, as long as it had been against himself alone, he had
not minded; even Vassie would not yield altogether and come in on his
side. Blanche had to fight the lot of them, he told himself--resentful,
fearful lest they should frighten her away. But at the bottom of it all
was the fear, the distrust of her which he refused to recognise.

On this morning as he went down over the fields to Mrs. Penticost's he
was more uneasy than ever before--he knew it was not his imagination
that she had been different these last few days; he began to be beset by
vague fears to which he had not dared give form even in his own mind,
much less in any speech with her. Yet since the dance he had faced the
conclusion that they could not go on as they were, that Blanche must
either agree