The husky strangled voice made its appeal. She looked with more of understanding into his bloodshot eyes, his haggard ravaged face, and her own face became suddenly very sweet and of a marvellous brightness.
“Yes,” she said, “the journey is worth making too.”
More distant came the sound of Ruth’s song:
“I pray that God will let me go
And wander with them to and fro,
Along the flowered fields I know,
That look towards the sea,
That look towards the sea.”
The white pigeons swooped down about her. The dogs, so long kept in to heel, rushed wildly over the lawn and down to the river, uttering sharp cries of joy. A robin, perched on the coping of the old wall, sang sweet and shrill. She looked out over her beloved fields, over the long valley full of misty sunshine, and was content. The farm was Itself again. She moved on across the lawn leaving footprints on the silver wet grass, to where, standing by the gate, she saw Roger North.
He turned at the sound of her coming, and she called to him: