Janet Leighton meanwhile watched it all.  She had seen Rachel treat a new male acquaintance before as she had just treated the vicar.  To begin with, the manners of an icicle; then a sudden thaw, just in time to save the situation.  She had come with amusement to the conclusion that, however really indifferent or capricious, her new friend could not in the long run resign herself to be disliked, even by a woman, and much more in the case of a man.  Was it vanity, or sex, or both?  Temperament perhaps; the modern word which covers so much.  Janet remembered a little niece of her own who in her mother’s absence entertained a gentleman visitor with great success.  When asked for his name, she shook her pretty head.  “Just a man, mummy,” she said, bridling.  Janet Leighton suspected that similar tales might have been told of Miss Henderson in her babyhood.

And yet impressions recurred to her of another kind—­of a sensitive, almost fierce delicacy—­a shrinking from the ugly or merely physical facts of life, as of one who had suffered some torment in connection with them.

Janet’s eyes followed the curly brown head as its possessor came slowly back from the gate.  She was thinking of a moment when, one evening, while they were both still at college, they had realized their liking for each other, and had agreed to set up in partnership.  Then Rachel, springing to her feet, with her hands behind her, and head thrown back, had said suddenly:  “I warn you, I have a story.  I don’t want to tell you, to tell anybody.  I shan’t tell you.  It’s done with.  I give you my word that I’m not a bad woman.  But if you don’t want to be my partner on these terms, say so!”

And Janet had felt no difficulty whatever in becoming Rachel Henderson’s partner on these terms.  Nor had she ever yet regretted it.

The light farm cart which had been sent to the station for stores drove up to the yard gate as Rachel left it.  She turned back to receive some parcels handed out by the “exempted” man who drove it, together with some letters which had been found lying at the village post office.  Two of the letters were for Janet.  She sent them up to the house, and went herself towards the harvest field.

There they stood—­the rows of golden “shocks” or stooks.  The “shockers” had just finished their day’s work.  She could hear the footsteps of the last batch, a cheerful chatter, while talk and laughter came softened through the evening air.  The man who had been driving the reaping machine was doing some rough repairs to it in a far corner of the field, with a view to the morrow, and she caught sight of her new bailiff, Hastings, who had waited to see everybody off, disappearing towards his own cottage, which stood on a lonely spur of the down.  The light was fast going, but the deep glow of the western sky answered the paler gold of the new-made stubble and the ranged stooks, while between rose the dark and splendid masses of the woods.