And here was Rachel—­free—­bursting with health—­and possessed of “lots of money.”  She thought, no doubt, that she had done with him—­thrust him out of her life altogether.  He’d let her see!  Whose fault was it that he had taken up with Anita?  Nagging, impossible creature!—­with her fine ladyisms and her tempers, and her insolent superior ways!

He walked on, consumed with a bitterness which held him like a physical anguish.  By now he had reached the farm gate.  The sunset had cleared and deepened.  Great rosy thunder-clouds topped the down, and strong lights were climbing up the bronzed masses of wood behind the house.  No one to be seen.  At Millsborough they could hardly be out of church yet.  He had time before him.  He walked cautiously up the farm-lane, diverging to the left as he reached the buildings so as to escape the notice of any one who might be left in charge.  As he slipped under the large cart-shed which backed on the cow-house, he heard somebody whistling inside.  It was old Halsey, who had done the afternoon milking in the absence of the girls.  Delane could hear the movements of the labourer, and the munching of the cows.  A little farther on was the stable, and two horses’ heads, looking pensively out from the open half of the door.  Delane peered into the stable with the eye of one to whom all farming matters were familiar.  Three fine horses—­d—–­d fine horses!—­must have cost L100 a piece at least.  No doubt the cows were equally good stuff.  And he had noticed under the outer cart-shed a brand-new reaper and binder, and other farm implements and machines of the best quality.  Rachel was doing the thing in style.

But where was the farm-house?  Then as he crept round the third side of the rough quadrangle, he became aware of a large window with white curtains.  Looking through it with his face against the glass, he was startled to find that he was looking straight into the farm-yard through another window of equal size on the other side of the room.  And at the moment Halsey came out of the cow-shed carrying a pail of milk in either hand.  Delane drew hastily back into the shelter of an old holly that grew against the wall, till the old man had disappeared.  Then he eagerly examined the room, which was still suffused by the sunset.  Its prettiness and comfort were so many fresh exasperations.  He contrasted it inwardly with the wretched lodging from which he had just come.  Why, he knew the photographs on the walls—­her father, the old parson, and her puritanical mother, whom Rachel had always thrown in his teeth.  Her eldest brother, too, who had been drowned at sea.  And that engraving—­that sentimental thing by Watts, “Love and Death,” that Rachel had bought once on a visit to Toronto, and he had scolded her for buying.  There it was, as large as life.  How did it come there?  Was it her property or his?  He believed he could claim it, if he chose.  Gad!—­what would she say if she knew where he was at that moment, and what he was doing!