But though she held her tongue, Janet showed her feeling sometimes by a tone, or a lifted eyebrow, and then Rachel would look at her askance, turning the vicar’s head none the less on the next occasion.  Was it that she was deceiving herself, as well as trying, very unsuccessfully, to deceive the lookers-on?  The progress of the affair with Ellesborough made on Janet a curious and rather sinister impression, which she could hardly explain to herself.  She seemed to see that Ellesborough’s suit steadily advanced; that Rachel made no real attempt to resist his power over her.  But all the same there was no happy, spontaneous growth in it.  Rachel seemed to take her increasing subjection hardly, to be fighting obscurely against it all the time, as though she were hampered by thought and motives unknown to the other two.  Ellesborough, Janet thought, was often puzzled by the cynical or bitter talk with which Rachel would sometimes deliberately provoke him.  And yet it was clear that he possessed the self-confidence of a strong man, and did not really doubt his ultimate power to win and hold the woman he was courting.

One bitterly cold evening at the very end of September, Ellesborough, arriving at the farm, was welcomed by Janet, and told that all hands were in the fields “clamping” potatoes.  She herself left a vegetable stew ready for supper, safely simmering in a hay-box, and walked towards the potato field with Ellesborough.  On the way they fell in with Hastings, the bailiff, who was walking fast, and seemed to be in some excitement.

“Miss Leighton—­that old fool Halsey has given notice!”

Janet stopped in dismay.  Halsey was a valuable man, an old-fashioned labourer of many aptitudes, equally good as a woodman, as an expert in “fagging” or sickling beaten-down corn, as a thatcher of roofs or ricks, as a setter of traps for moles, or snares for rabbits.  Halsey was the key-stone of the farm labour.  Betts was well enough.  But without Halsey’s intelligence to keep him straight—­Janet groaned.

“What on earth’s the matter, Hastings?  We raised his wages last week—­and we did it before the county award was out!”

Hastings shook his head.

“It’s not wages.  He says he’s seen the ghost!”

Janet exclaimed, and Ellesborough laughed.

“What, the defunct gamekeeper?”

Hastings nodded.

“Vows he’s seen him twice—­once on the hill—­on the green path—­and once disappearing round the corner of the farm.  He declares that he called to the man—­who was like nobody he had ever seen before—­and the man took no notice, but went along, all hunched up—­as they say the ghost is—­and talking to himself—­till all of a sudden he vanished.  I’ve argued with him.  But nothing’ll hold him—­old idiot!  He vows he’ll go—–­and if he talks to the others they’ll all go.”

“Has he gone home?” asked Janet.

“Long ago.  He left the horses to Jenny, and just marched off.  In the lane he met me, and gave notice.  Such a cock-and-bull story as you never heard!  But I couldn’t do anything with him.”