Pity.  Pity could drag your face tight and hard, like Burton’s when his mare, Jenny, died of colic.

But before that—­the night they went to Stow Fair together; crossing the street at the sharp turn by the church gate, something happened.  They hadn’t heard the motor car coming; it was down on them before they could see it, swerving round her side of the street.  He had had his hand tight on her arm to steer her through the crowd.  When the car came ... when the car came ... he let go and jumped clean to the curb.  She could feel the splash-board graze her thigh, as she sprang clear of it, quick, like a dog.

She was sure he jumped first.  She was sure he hadn’t let her go before the car came.  She could see the blaze of the lamps and feel his grip slacken on her arm.

She wasn’t sure.  He couldn’t have jumped.  He couldn’t have let go.  Of course he hadn’t.  She had imagined it.  She imagined all sorts of things.  If she could make them bad enough she would stop thinking about him; she would stop caring.  She didn’t want to care.

* * * * *

“Charlotte—­when I die, that’s where I’d like to be buried.”

Coming back from Bourton market they had turned into the churchyard on the top of Stow-hill.  The long path went straight between the stiff yew cones through the green field set with graves.

“On the top, so high up you could almost breathe in your coffin here.”

“I don’t want to breathe in my coffin.  When I’m dead I’m dead, and when I’m alive I’m alive.  Don’t talk about dying.”

“Why not?  Think of the gorgeous risk of it—­the supreme toss up.  After all, death’s the most thrilling thing that happens.”

“Whose death?”

“My death.”

“Don’t talk about it.”

“Your death then.”

“Oh, mine—­”

“Our death, Jeanne.”

He turned to her in the path.  His mouth was hard now, but his eyes shone at her, smiling, suddenly warm, suddenly tender.

She knew herself then; she knew there was one cruelty, one brutality beyond bearing, John’s death.

IV

John had gone away for a week.

If she could tire herself out, and not dream.  In the slack days between hay-time and harvest she was never tired enough.  She lay awake, teased by the rucking of the coarse hot sheet under her back, and the sweat that kept on sliding between her skin and her night gown.  And she dreamed.

She was waiting in the beech ring on the top of the field.  Inside the belt of the tree trunks a belt of stones grew up, like the wall of the garden.  It went higher and higher and a hole opened in it, a long slit.  She stuck her head through the hole to look out over the hills.

This was the watch-tower.  She knew, as if she remembered it, that John had told her to go up and wait for him there; she was keeping watch for him on the tower.