Anne had been back at the Farm a week and he had not been to see her.  But Maisie’s last letter made him wonder whether, really, he need try any more.  He was ill and miserable.  Why should he make himself ill and miserable for a woman who didn’t care whether he was ill and miserable or not?  Why shouldn’t he go and see Anne?  Maisie had left him to her.

And on Sunday morning, suddenly, he went.

There had been a sharp frost overnight.  Every branch and twig, every blade of grass, every crinkle in the road was edged with a white fur of rime.  It crackled under his feet.  He drank down the cold, clean air like water.  His whole body felt cold and clean.  He was aware of its strength in the hard tension of his muscles as he walked.  His own movement exhilarated and excited him.  He was going to see Anne.

Anne was not in the house.  He went through the yards looking for her.  In the stockyard he met her coming up from the sheepfold, carrying a young lamb in her arms.  She smiled at him as she came.

She wore her farm dress, knee breeches and a thing like an old trench coat, and looked superb.  She went bareheaded.  Her black hair was brushed up from her forehead and down over her ears, the length of it rolled in on itself in a curving mass at the back.  Over it the frost had raised a crisp web of hair that covered its solid smoothness like a net.  Anne’s head was the head of a hunting Diana; it might have fitted into the sickle moon.

The lamb’s queer knotted body was like a grey ligament between its hind and fore quarters.  It rested on Anne’s arms, the long black legs dangling.  The black-faced, hammer-shaped head hung in the hollow of her elbow.

“This is Colin’s job,” she said.

“What are you doing with it?”

“Taking it indoors to nurse it.  It’s been frozen stiff, poor darling.  Do you mind looking in the barn and seeing if you can find some old sacks there?”

He looked, found the sacks and carried them, following her into the kitchen.  Anne fetched a piece of old blanket and wrapped the lamb up.  They made a bed of the sacks before the fire and laid it on it.  She warmed some milk, dipped her fingers in it and put them into the lamb’s mouth to see if it would suck.

“I didn’t know they’d do that,” he said.

“Oh, they’ll suck anything.  When you’ve had them a little time they’ll climb into your lap like puppies and suck the buttons on your coat.  Its mother’s dead and we shall have to bring it up by hand.”

“I doubt if you will.”

“Oh yes, I shall save it.  It can suck all right.  You might tell Colin about it.  He looks after the sick lambs.”

She got up and stood looking down at the lamb tucked in its blanket, while Jerrold looked at her.  When she looked down Anne’s face was divinely tender, as if all the love in the world was in her heart.  He loved to agony that tender, downward-looking face.