He asked a few questions about her plans.  She answered him very gently, with a subtle note of apology in her voice; but yet, as it seemed to him, from rather far away.  And when they parted, he realized that he had never known more of her than an outer self, which offered but little clue to the self within.

Rachel walked back to the farm with Miss Shenstone’s note in her pocket.  She had told the vicar that her land-girls should certainly come to the Shepherds’ servants’ party—­but she said nothing about it to them—­till Janet Leighton had safely bicycled away in the early afternoon.  The invitation, however, was a godsend.  For Rachel had begun to realize that there was a good deal of watching going on—­watching of the farm, and watching over herself.  She understood that Halsey had been scared by some tramp or other whom he took for the ghost; and she saw that Janet was unwilling that any one should be alone after dark in the farm.  Nobody had talked to her—­Rachel—­about it—­no doubt by Ellesborough’s wish—­because she was supposed to be out of sorts—­run down.  She had accepted the little conspiracy of silence as a proof of his tenderness, and had obediently asked no questions.

And it had not yet occurred to her to connect the stories floating about the farm with Delane’s reappearance.  The stunning fact of the reappearance, with all that it might mean to her, absorbed her mind—­for a few hours yet.

But as soon as Janet was safely off the premises, she hurried across to the shippen, where Betty and Jenny were milking.

“Girls!—­would you like to go to the Shepherds’ dance to-night?  I’ve got an invitation for you?”

Stupefaction—­and delight!  The invitations had been very sparing and select, and the two little maidens had felt themselves Cinderellas indeed, all the sorer in their minds seeing that Dempsey and Betty’s young man were both going.

But frocks!  Jenny at least had nothing suitable.  Rachel at once offered a white frock.  The milking and dairy work were hurried through, and then came the dressing, as the dance began at seven.  Betty, knowing herself to be a beauty, except for her teeth, had soon finished.  A white blouse, a blue cotton skirt, a blue ribbon in her mop of brown hair—­and she looked at herself exultantly in Miss Henderson’s glass.  Jenny was much more difficult to please.  She was crimson with excitement, and the tip of her little red tongue kept slipping in and out.  But Rachel patted and pinned—­in a kind of dream.  Jenny’s red hair, generally worn in the tightest wisps and plaits, was brushed out till it stood like a halo round her face and neck, and she was secretly afraid that Dempsey wouldn’t know her.

Then Rachel wrapped them up in their land-army waterproofs, and saw them off, carrying an electric torch to guide them safely through the bit of lane under the trees.  But there was a moon rising, and the fog was less.