They went upstairs together, and parted on the landing.

“And you’ll go to bed now, won’t you?” urged Granny Grimshaw.

“All right,” said Jeff.

But once in his own room he went to the low lattice-window that overlooked the mill-stream, and stood before it looking gravely forth over the still water.  It was a night of many stars.  Beyond the stream there stretched a dream-valley across which the river mists were trailing.  The tall trees in the meadows stood up with a ghostly magnificence against them.  The whole scene was one of wondrous peace, and all, as far as he could see, was his.  But the man’s eyes brooded over his acres with a dumb dissatisfaction, and when he turned from the window at last it was with a gesture of hopelessness.

“God help me for a fool!” he muttered between his teeth.  “If I went near her, they would kick me out by the back door.”

He began to undress with savage energy, and finally flung himself down on the old four-poster in which his father had lain before him, lying there motionless, with fixed and sleepless eyes, while the hours went by over his head.

Once—­it was just before daybreak—­he rose and went again to the open window that overlooked his prosperous valley.  A change had come over the face of it.  The mists were lifting, lifting.  He saw the dark forms of cattle standing here and there.  The river wound, silent and mysterious, away into the dim, quiet distance.  A church clock struck, its tone vague and remote as a voice from another world.  And as if in answer to its solemn call a lark soared upwards from the meadow by the mill-stream with a burst of song.

The east was surely lightening.  The night was gone.  Jeff leaned his burning temple against the window-frame with a feeling akin to physical sickness.  He was tired—­dead tired; but he knew that he could not sleep now.  The world was waking.  From the farmyard round the corner of the house there came the flap of wings and the old rooster’s blatant greeting to the dawn.

In another half-hour the whole place would be stirring.  He had wasted a whole night’s rest.

Fiercely he straightened himself.  Surely his brain must be going!  Why, he had only spoken to her twice.  And then, like a spirit that mocked, the words ran through his brain:  “Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”

So this was love, was it?  This—­was love!

With clenched hands he stood looking out to the dawning, while the wild fever leaped and seethed in his veins.  He called up before his inner vision the light, dainty figure, the level, grey eyes, fearless, yet in a fashion shy, the glow of the sun-tanned skin, the soft, thick hair, brown in the shadow, gold in the sun.

Straight before him, low in the sky, hung the morning star.  It almost looked as if it were drifting earthwards with all its purity, all its glistening sweetness, drifting straight to the heart of the world.  He fixed his eyes upon it, drawn by its beauty almost in spite of himself.  It was the only star in the sky, and it almost seemed as if it had a message for him.