“Why, of course, ma’am, won’t say anything.  I didn’t mean any harm.”

“All right,” said Rachel, scrambling back to her seat.  “If you like to come up to-morrow morning, I shall be pleased to see you.  It’s a bargain, mind!”

He saluted, smiling.  She nodded to him, and drove off.

“Well, that’s the rummiest go!” said the bewildered Dempsey to himself, as he walked towards his bicycle.  “Mistake be damned!  She was Mrs. Delane, and what’s she up to now with my captain?  And what the deuce was she doing at Tanner’s?”

Never did a person feel himself more vastly important than Dempsey as he bicycled back to the Ralstone camp, whence he had started in the morning, after the peace news, to go and see a cousin living some distance beyond Great End Farm.  To be his grandfather’s grandson was much—­but this!

Rachel drove, with hands unconscious of the reins, along the road and up the farm lane leading through her own fields.  The world swam around her in the mist, but there, still in front of her, lay the illuminated farm, a house of light standing in air.  As she neared it, the front door opened and sounds of singing and laughter came out.

The “Marseillaise”! Allons, enfants de la patrie!—­Janet was playing it, singing vigorously herself, and trying to teach the two girls the French words, a performance which broke down every other minute in helpless laughter from all three.  Meanwhile, Hastings, who had been standing behind the singers, his hands in his pockets, a rare and shamefaced pleasure shining from his care-worn face, thought he heard the cart, and looked out.  Yes, it was the Missis, as he liked to call Miss Henderson, and he ran down to meet her.

“Well, I suppose there were fine doings at Millsborough, Miss,” he said, as he held the horse for her to get down.

“Yes—­there were a lot of people.  It was very noisy.”

“We thought you’d hear our noise, Miss, as far as the road!  Miss Leighton, she’s been keeping us all alive.  She took the girls to church—­to the Thanksgiving Service, while I looked after things.”

“All right, Hastings,” said Miss Henderson, in a voice that struck his ear strangely.  “Thank you.  Will you take the cart?”

He thought as he led the horse away, “She’s been overdoin’ it again.  The Cap’n will tell her so.”

Rachel climbed the little slope to the front door.  It seemed an Alp.  Presently she stood on the threshold of the sitting-room, in her thick fur coat, looking at the group round the piano.  Janet glanced round, laughing.  “Come and join in!” And they all struck up “God Save the King”—­a comely group in the lamplight, Jenny and Betty lifting their voices lustily.  But they seemed to Rachel to be playing some silly game which she did not understand.  She closed the door and went upstairs to her own room.  It was cold and dark.  She lit a candle, and her own face, transformed, looked at her from the glass on the dressing-table.  She gave a weary, half-reflective sigh.  “Shall I be like that when I’m old?”