So that a golden light lay over these past weeks.  And in the midst of it stood the figure of a silent and—­as far as he was concerned—­rather difficult woman, without which there would have been no transfiguring light at all.  He confessed to himself that she had never had much to say to him.  But wherever she was she drew the male creature after her.  There was no doubt as to that.  She was a good employer—­fair, considerate, intelligent; but it was the woman—­so the vicar believed—­who got her way.

From which it will be seen that Miss Eleanor Shenstone had some reason for misgiving, and that the vicar’s own peace of mind was in danger.  His standards also were no longer what they were.  He had really ceased to care that Miss Leighton was a Unitarian!

“I suppose you have been horribly busy?” said Rachel to Ellesborough, when, thanks to the exertions of Janet and the two girls, everybody had been provided with a first course.

“Not more than usual.  Do you mean—­” He looked at her, smiling, and Rachel’s eyebrows went up slightly.  “Ah, I see—­you thought I had forgotten?”

“Oh, no,” she said indifferently.  “It is a long way to come.”

He flushed a little.

“That never occurred to me for a moment!” he said with emphasis.  “But you said you would have finished with the harvest in a week.  So I waited.  I didn’t want to be a nuisance.”

At which she smiled, a smile that overflowed eyes and lips, and stirred the senses of the man beside her.

“How is the prisoner?”

“Poor boy!  He died the day before yesterday.  We did everything we could, but he had no chance from the first.  Hard lines!”

“Why, he might have been home next year!”

“He might, indeed.  Yes, Miss Henderson, it’ll be peace next year—­perhaps this year!  Who knows!  But I hope I’ll have a look in first.  I’ve got my orders.  As soon as they’ve appointed my successor here, I’m off.  About a month, I suppose.  They’ve accepted me for the Air Force.”

His eyes glowed.  Rachel said nothing.  She felt hurt that he expressed no regret at going.  Then the vicar struck into the conversation with some enthusiastic remarks about the steady flowing in of the American army.  That, indeed, was the great, the overpowering fact of these August days.  Ellesborough responded eagerly, describing the huge convoy with which he himself had come over; and that amazing, that incredible march across three thousand miles of sea and land, which every day was pouring into the British Isles, and so into France, some 15,000 men—­the flower of American manhood, come to the rescue of the world.  He told the great story well, with the graphic phrases of a quick mind, well fed on facts, yet not choked by them.  The table hung on him.  Even little Jenny, with parted lips, would not have missed a word.

He meanwhile was led on—­for he was not a man of facile or boastful speech—­by the eyes of Rachel Henderson, and those slight gestures or movements by which from time to time when the talk flagged she would set it going again.