The young moon, riding low, shot her light upon his still, lean figure, and in that light it was strange to see how grey he looked—­grey from head to foot, grey, and sad, and old, as though in summary of all the squires who in turn had looked upon that prospect frosted with young moonlight to the boundary of their lands.  Out in the paddock he saw his old hunter Bob, with his head turned towards the house; and from the very bottom of his heart he sighed.

In answer to that sigh came a sound of something falling outside against the door.  He opened it to see what might be there.  The spaniel John, lying on a cushion of blue linen, with his head propped up against the wall, darkly turned his eyes.

‘I am here, master,’ he seemed to say; ’it is late—­I was about to go to sleep; it has done me good, however, to see you;’ and hiding his eyes from the light under a long black ear, he drew a stertorous breath.  Mr. Pendyce shut-to the door.  He had forgotten the existence of his dog.  But, as though with the sight of that faithful creature he had regained belief in all that he was used to, in all that he was master of, in all that was—­himself, he opened the bedroom door and took his place beside his wife.

And soon he was asleep.

PART III

CHAPTER I

MRS. PENDYCE’S ODYSSEY

But Mrs. Pendyce did not sleep.  That blessed anodyne of the long day spent in his farmyards and fields was on her husband’s eyes—­no anodyne on hers; and through them, all that was deep, most hidden, sacred, was laid open to the darkness.  If only those eyes could have been seen that night!  But if the darkness had been light, nothing of all this so deep and sacred would have been there to see, for more deep, more sacred still, in Margery Pendyce, was the instinct of a lady.  So elastic and so subtle, so interwoven of consideration for others and consideration for herself, so old, so very old, this instinct wrapped her from all eyes, like a suit of armour of the finest chain.  The night must have been black indeed when she took that off and lay without it in the darkness.

With the first light she put it on again, and stealing from bed, bathed long and stealthily those eyes which felt as though they had been burned all night; thence went to the open window and leaned out.  Dawn had passed, the birds were at morning music.  Down there in the garden her flowers were meshed with the grey dew, and the trees were grey, spun with haze; dim and spectrelike, the old hunter, with his nose on the paddock rail, dozed in the summer mist.

And all that had been to her like prison out there, and all that she had loved, stole up on the breath of the unaired morning, and kept beating in her face, fluttering at the white linen above her heart like the wings of birds flying.