A gentle rain had fallen during the day, but had ceased as she made her way toward Insall’s house.  The place was familiar now:  she had been there to supper with Mrs. Maturin, a supper cooked and served by Martha Vesey, an elderly, efficient and appallingly neat widow, whom Insall had discovered somewhere in his travels and installed as his housekeeper.  Janet paused with her hand on the gate latch to gaze around her, at the picket fence on which he had been working when she had walked hither the year before.  It was primly painted now, its posts crowned with the carved pineapples; behind the fence old-fashioned flowers were in bloom, lupins and false indigo; and the retaining wall of blue-grey slaty stone, which he had laid that spring, was finished.  A wind stirred the maple, releasing a shower of heavy drops, and she opened the gate and went up the path and knocked at the door.  There was no response—­even Martha must be absent, in the village!  Janet was disappointed, she had looked forward to seeing him, to telling him how great had been her pleasure in the story he had written, at the same time doubting her courage to do so.  She had never been able to speak to him about his work and what did her opinion matter to him?  As she turned away the stillness was broken by a humming sound gradually rising to a crescendo, so she ventured slowly around the house and into the orchard of gnarled apple trees on the slope until she came insight of a little white building beside the brook.  The weathervane perched on the gable, and veering in the wet breeze, seemed like a live fish swimming in its own element; and through the open window she saw Insall bending over a lathe, from which the chips were flying.  She hesitated.  Then he looked up, and seeing her, reached above his head to pull the lever that shut off the power.

“Come in,” he called out, and met her at the doorway.  He was dressed in a white duck shirt, open at the neck, and a pair of faded corduroy trousers.  “I wasn’t looking for this honour,” he told her, with a gesture of self-deprecation, “or I’d have put on a dinner coat.”

And, despite her eagerness and excitement, she laughed.

“I didn’t dare to leave this in the house,” she explained.  Mrs. Vesey wasn’t home.  And I thought you might be here.”

“You haven’t made the copy already!”

“Oh, I loved doing it!” she replied, and paused, flushing.  She might have known that it would be simply impossible to talk to him about it!  So she laid it down on the workbench, and, overcome by a sudden shyness, retreated toward the door.

“You’re not going!” he exclaimed.

“I must—­and you’re busy.”

“Not at all,” he declared, “not at all, I was just killing time until supper.  Sit down!” And he waved her to a magisterial-looking chair of Jacobean design, with turned legs, sandpapered and immaculate, that stood in the middle of the shop.

“Oh, not in that!” Janet protested.  “And besides, I’d spoil it—­I’m sure my skirt is wet.”