A quarter of a mile beyond the village.  Thank Heaven it was no further.

The church bells had ceased ringing, from the church itself came the pleasant sounds of voices.  The village street lay white in the sunlight with the blue shadows of the houses, a world of peace and of beauty, of sweet scenes and of sweet sounds; and now he had left the village behind him.

“Is this Buddesby, my man?  Those gates, are they the gates of Buddesby?”

“Aye, they be,” said the man.  He was a big, gipsy-looking fellow, who slouched with hunched shoulders and a yellow mongrel dog at his heels.

“The gates of Buddesby they be, and—­” He paused; he stared hard into Slotman’s face.

“Oh!” he said slowly, “oh, so ’tis ’ee, be it?  I been watching out for ’ee.”

“What—­what do you mean?”

“I remember ’ee, I do.  I remember your grinning face.  I’ve carried it in my memory all right.  See that dawg?” The man pointed to the lurcher.  “See him:  he’s more’n a brother, more’n a son, more’n a wife to me.  That’s the dawg you run over that day, and you grinned.  I seen it—­you grinned!” The man’s black eyes sparkled.  He looked swiftly up the road and down it, and Slotman saw the action and quivered.

“I’ll give you—­” he began.  “I am very sorry; it was an accident.  I’ll pay you for—­”

But the man with the blazing eyes had leaped at him.

“I been waiting for ’ee, and I’ve cotched ’ee at last!” he shouted.

* * * * *

Johnny Everard, hands in pockets, mooning about his stock and rickyard, this calm Sunday morning, never guessed how near he had been to receiving a visitor.

He had not seen Joan since that night when, with Ellice beside him, he had seen her and the man at the door of Mrs. Bonner’s cottage.

He had meant to go, but had not gone.  He was due there to-day; this very morning Helen would expect him.  He had never missed spending a Sunday with them since the engagement; and yet he felt loath to go, and did not know why.

He had seen Connie off to Church.  Con never missed.  Ellice had not gone.  Ellice was perhaps a little less constant than Con.  He wondered where the girl was now, and, thinking of her, the frown on his face was smoothed away.

Always there was wonder, a sense of unreality in his mind; a feeling that somehow, in some way, he was wrong.  He must be wrong.  Strangely enough, these last few days he had thought more constantly of Ellice than of Joan.  He had pictured her again and again to himself—­a little, white-clad, barefooted figure standing against the dusky background of the hallway, framed by the open door.  He remembered the colour in her cheeks, and her brave championship of the other woman; but he remembered most of all the look in her eyes when she had said to him, “Please, please don’t!”

“I shall never kiss her again,” he said, and said it to himself, and knew as he said it that he was denying himself the thing for which now he longed.