‘I’ll send Agnes down to the village. And then I’ll bring you some tea.’
‘Don’t you worry about that!’
‘Agnes is making it now.’
She sent the maid running off at once. The kitchen fire was nearly out and the kettle would not boil. It seemed to her an age before she could get it boiling. Then she filled a jug with tea and prepared to take it to him. At the door a shadow startled her and she gave a cry. Abner was standing on the step.
‘It’s a bad job,’ he said. ‘She’s gone. She went off quite sudden.’
She did not realise what he was saying. She gave a nervous laugh.
‘Oh, what a start you gave me!’ she said, putting down the jug on the table. And then, suddenly, she put her hands to her face and started sobbing hysterically.
‘Don’t take on like that!’ he said. ‘It’s no fault of yourn.’
‘Oh, it’s not that!’ she cried. ‘It’s not that!’
He put his hand on her shoulder, trying to soothe her, and the next moment she was clinging in his arms and he was covering her face and neck with kisses. Harris, who had run up from his cottage as fast as he could travel, stood panting and gazing at them in the doorway, but neither Abner nor Marion saw him, and when he had stared at them for a moment he moved quietly across the yard into the byre.