“Why am I made like that?  I don’t know.  But I can’t feel that I am responsible.

“Perhaps if George forgives me, I shall be so happy that everything will change—­my own character first of all.  That is my hope.  For though I suppose I am vain—­though I like people to admire me and make much of me—­I am not really in love with myself at all.  If I were, I couldn’t be in love with George—­we are so different.

“I don’t feel yet that I know him.  Perhaps now I never shall.  I often find myself wishing that he had something to confess to me.  I would hardly let him—­he should never humble himself to me.  But to feel that I could forgive him something, and that he would owe me something—­would be very sweet, very heavenly.  I would make it so easy for him.  Is he feeling like that towards me?  ’Poor child—­she was very young—­and so miserable!’

“I mustn’t write like this—­it makes me cry.  There is a beautiful yellow sunset outside, and the world seems very still.  He must be here soon—­or a messenger.  Janet asked him not to wait.

“After all, I don’t think I am so changeable.  I have just been running myself down—­but I don’t really believe I could ever change—­towards him.  Oh, George!—­George!—­my George!—­come to me!—­don’t give me up.  George, darling, you could do anything with me you liked—­don’t despair of me!  In the Gospel, it was the bad women who were forgiven because they loved ‘much.’  Now I understand why.  Because love makes new.  It is so terribly strong.  It is either a poison—­or life—­immortal life.  I have never been able to believe in the things Janet believes in.  But I think I do now believe in immortality—­in something within you that can’t die—­when once it has begun to live.”

* * * * *

And then she laid her pencil down—­and sat with the book on her knee—­looking towards the gold and grey of the sky—­the tears running quietly down her cheeks.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, Hastings had come hurriedly into the shippen, where Janet and the two girls were milking.  He came to stand beside her, silent, but fidgeting so, that she presently looked up in astonishment.

“Did you want me?”

“I wanted to tell you something,” he said in a low voice, stooping over her—­“Don’t let the girls hear.  But that man’s been seen again.  The tramp.”

Janet started.  She jumped up, asked Betty, who had finished, to take her place, and went with Hastings out of the barn.

“There are two or three people think they’ve seen him lately,” he said hurriedly.  “A man from Dobson’s farm”—­(the farm which lay between Great End and the village)—­“who was on the hill yesterday evening, just before dark, was certain he saw somebody hanging about the back of the farm in a queer way—­”

“Last night?” echoed Janet.