Even although she had crossed it, she might still have left him pretty much as she found him—­unawakened to the deeps of his own nature—­if she had remained in her present ambiguous mood, half-remorseful, half indifferent.  But it was precisely at this particular juncture that it pleased Fate to give a fresh twist to her swiftly turning wheel.

Storran did not come in until dinner was half over, and when finally he appeared he was somewhat taciturn and avoided meeting Magda’s eyes.  June got up from the table and went dutifully into the kitchen to fetch the joint of meat and vegetables which she had been keeping hot for him there.  Abruptly Dan followed her.

“Sorry I’m late, June,” he said awkwardly.  “Here, give the tray to me; I’ll carry it in.”

June paused in the middle of the kitchen, flushing right up to the soft tendrils of hair that curled about her forehead.  It was weeks since Dan had offered to relieve her of any of her housewifely tasks, although at one time he had been wont to hurry home, if he could manage to do so, on purpose to help her.  Dozens of times they had laid the table together, punctuating the process with jokes and gay little bursts of laughter and an odd kiss or two thrown in to sweeten the work.  But not lately—­not since the visitors from London had come to Stockleigh Farm.

So June blushed and looked at her husband with eyes that were suddenly sweet and questioning.  She knew, though she had not told him yet, that there was a reason now why he should try to save her when his greater strength could do so, and for a moment she wondered shyly if he had guessed.

“Why, Dan, Dan——­” she stammered.

His face darkened.  Her obvious surprise irritated him, pricking his conscience.

“It’s not very complimentary of you to look so taken aback when I offer to carry something for you,” he said.  “Anyone might think I never did wait on my wife.”

The blood drained away from June’s face as suddenly as it had rushed there.

“Well, you don’t often, do you?” she returned shortly.

They re-entered the sitting-room together and Magda glanced up, smiling approval.  She, too, was feeling somewhat conscience-stricken, and to see Dan helping his wife in this everyday, intimate sort of fashion seemed to minimise the significance of that little incident which had occurred by the river’s edge.

“What a nice, polite husband!” she commented gaily.  “Mr. Storran, you really out to come up to London and give classes—­’Manners for Men,’ you know.  Very few of them wait on their wives these days.”

June upset the salt and busied herself spooning it up again from the cloth.  There was no answering smile on her face.  She was not quite clear why Dan had followed her out into the kitchen so unexpectedly, but she sensed that it was not the old, quick impulse to wait upon her which had actuated him.

Had she but known it, it was the same instinct, more primitively manifested, which induces a man whose conscience is not altogether clear respecting his loyalty towards his wife to bring her home an unexpected gift of jewellery.