Bellew went up to the table, poured out some whisky, and drank it off.

“You don’t ask me to stop the proceedings,” he said.

Mrs. Pendyce’s lips were parted, but nothing came through those parted lips.  Her eyes, black as sloes in her white face, never moved from his; she made no sound.

Bellew dashed his hand across his brow.

“Well, I will!” he said, “for your sake.  There’s my hand on it.  You’re the only lady I know!”

He gripped her gloved fingers, brushed past her, and she saw that she was alone.

She found her own way out, with the tears running down her face.  Very gently she shut the hall door.

‘My poor dress!’ she thought.  ’I wonder if I might stand here a little?  The rain looks nearly over!’

The purple cloud had passed, and sunk behind the house, and a bright white sky was pouring down a sparkling rain; a patch of deep blue showed behind the fir-trees in the drive.  The thrushes were out already after worms.  A squirrel scampering along a branch stopped and looked at Mrs. Pendyce, and Mrs. Pendyce looked absently at the squirrel from behind the little handkerchief with which she was drying her eyes.

‘That poor man!’ she thought ‘poor solitary creature!  There’s the sun!’

And it seemed to her that it was the first time the sun had shone all this fine hot year.  Gathering her dress in both hands, she stepped into the drive, and soon was back again in the fields.

Every green thing glittered, and the air was so rain-sweet that all the summer scents were gone, before the crystal scent of nothing.  Mrs. Pendyce’s shoes were soon wet through.

‘How happy I am!’ she thought ‘how glad and happy I am!’

And the feeling, which was not as definite as this, possessed her to the exclusion of all other feelings in the rain-soaked fields.

The cloud that had hung over Worsted Skeynes so long had spent itself and gone.  Every sound seemed to be music, every moving thing danced.  She longed to get to her early roses, and see how the rain had treated them.  She had a stile to cross, and when she was safely over she paused a minute to gather her skirts more firmly.  It was a home-field she was in now, and right before her lay the country house.  Long and low and white it stood in the glamourous evening haze, with two bright panes, where the sunlight fell, watching, like eyes, the confines of its acres; and behind it, to the left, broad, square, and grey among its elms, the village church.  Around, above, beyond, was peace—­the sleepy, misty peace of the English afternoon.

Mrs. Pendyce walked towards her garden.  When she was near it, away to the right, she saw the Squire and Mr. Barter.  They were standing together looking at a tree and—­symbol of a subservient under-world—­the spaniel John was seated on his tail, and he, too, was looking at the tree.  The faces of the Rector and Mr. Pendyce were turned up at the same angle, and different as those faces and figures were in their eternal rivalry of type, a sort of essential likeness struck her with a feeling of surprise.  It was as though a single spirit seeking for a body had met with these two shapes, and becoming confused, decided to inhabit both.