"Um! I thought once that—well, I shall write."
Betty felt that her heart was beating.
"He will pay no attention to a letter. Why not go to him yourself, Mr. Samphire?"
"By God!—I will."
Betty smiled faintly, for the Squire, when he set his mind to a thing, was easily turned aside.
Then she went her way; and Mrs. Corrance noted in her diary that Betty seemed quieter, more like her old self.
On the following Saturday Jim arrived from town, exhaling and exuding Capel Court. He strolled with Betty through lanes, where they had picked primroses and blackberries long ago; and the familiar trees and hedgerows stood like sentinels of the past, guarding simple joys, which Betty told herself could never return. Jim reminded her that a missel-thrush had built in the old pollard close to the village pound, and that the eggs, when about to be blown, proved addled.
"You were very keen about eggs," she said.
"I've always been keen," said Jim. "By Jove!—it was a sell about those eggs. Well—I still collect eggs, and some are addled! That Cornucopia mine, for instance...."
He plunged into a description of a mining deal which had proved disastrous.