her. Should she not ask him to keep his promise, now that
George----? Was not that what she had come for? Ought she not--ought she
not for all their sakes?

Bellew went up to the table, poured out some whisky, and drank it off.

"You don't ask me to stop the proceedings," he said.

Mrs. Pendyce's lips were parted, but nothing came through those parted
lips. Her eyes, black as sloes in her white face, never moved from his;
she made no sound.

Bellew dashed his hand across his brow.

"Well, I will!" he said, "for your sake. There's my hand on it. You're
the only lady I know!"

He gripped her gloved fingers, brushed past her, and she saw that she
was alone.

She found her own way out, with the tears running down her face. Very
gently she shut the hall door.

'My poor dress!' she thought. 'I wonder if I might stand here a little?
The rain looks nearly over!'

The purple cloud had passed, and sunk behind the house, and a bright
white sky was pouring down a sparkling rain; a patch of deep blue showed
behind the fir-trees in the drive. The thrushes were out already after
worms. A squirrel scampering along a branch stopped and looked at Mrs.
Pendyce, and Mrs. Pendyce looked absently at the squirrel from behind
the little handkerchief with which she was drying her eyes.

'That poor man!' she thought 'poor solitary creature! There's the sun!'

And it seemed to her that it was the first time the sun had shone all
this fine hot year. Gathering her dress in both hands, she stepped into
the drive, and soon was back again in the fields.

Every green thing glittered, and the air was so rain-sweet that all
the summer scents were gone, before the crystal scent of nothing. Mrs.
Pendyce's shoes were soon wet through.

'How happy I am!' she thought 'how glad and happy I am!'

And the feeling, which was not as definite as this, possessed her to the
exclusion of all other feelings in the rain-soaked fields.

The cloud that had hung over Worsted Skeynes so long had spent itself
and gone. Every sound seemed to be music, every moving thing danced. She
longed to get to her early roses, and see how the rain had treated them.
She had a stile to cross, and when she was safely over she paused a
minute to gather her skirts more firmly. It was a home-field she was in
now, and right before her lay the country house. Long and low and white
it stood in the glamourous evening haze, with two bright panes, where
the sunlight fell, watching,