“One would,” said Anne, and again refrained from asking questions.

She was thinking of the complete confidence with which Lucas had spoken of his ascendency over this man.

Finishing luncheon they went out over the common that stretched from the very door, down the hill-side of short, sun-baked grass, passing between masses of scorched broom, whose bursting pods crackled perpetually in the sunshine, till they came to the green shade of forest trees and the gleam of a running stream.

The whirr of grasshoppers filled the air and the humming of insects innumerable.  Away in the distance sounded the metal clang of a cow-bell.  It was the only definite sound that broke the stillness.  The heat was intense.  A dull, copper haze had risen and partially obscured the sun.

Anne stopped on the edge of the stream.  Wonderful dragon-flies such as she had never seen before, peacock, orange and palest green, darted to and fro above the brown water.  Nap leaned against a tree close to her and smoked a cigarette.

She spoke at last without turning.  “Am I in fairyland, I wonder?”

“Or the Garden of Eden,” suggested Nap.

She laughed a little, and stooping tried to reach a forget-me-not that grew on the edge of the water.

“Beware of the serpent!” he warned.  “Anyway, don’t tumble in!”

She stretched back a hand to him.  “Don’t let me go!”

His hand closed instantly and firmly upon her wrist.  In a moment she drew back with the flower in her hand, to find his cigarette smouldering on a tuft of moss.  He set his foot upon it without explanation and lighted another.

“Ought we not to be starting back?” she asked.

“It won’t be so hot in half-an-hour,” he said.

“But how long will it take?”

“It can be done in under three hours.  If we start at half-past-four you should be home well before sunset.”

He smiled with the words, and Anne suffered herself to be persuaded.  Certainly the shade of the beech trees was infinitely preferable to the glare of the dusty roads, and the slumberous atmosphere made her feel undeniably languorous.

She sat down therefore on the roots of a tree, still watching the dragon-flies flitting above the water.

Nap stripped off his coat and made it into a cushion.  “Lean back on this.  Yes, really.  I’m thankful for the excuse to go without it.  How is that?  Comfortable?”

She thanked him with a smile.  “I mustn’t go to sleep.”

“Why not?” said Nap.  “There is nothing to disturb you.  I’m going back to the inn to order tea before we start.”

He was off with the words with that free, agile gait of his that always made her think of some wild creature of the woods.

She leaned back with a sense of complete well-being and closed her eyes....

When she opened them again it was with a guilty feeling of having been asleep at a critical juncture.  With a start she sat up and looked around her.  The sun-rays were still slanting through the wood, but dully, as though they shone through a sheet of smoked glass.  The stillness was intense.