Blanche had stayed on at the mill to help with repairs. She was rapidly developing into a capable engineer. So Millie, whose only service was that of machine minder, found herself alone and unoccupied.
Every one else seemed to be working. Her friends of the evening excursions were mostly in the fields on the Henley side of the town.
Millie decided she would lie down on the bed and go to sleep for a bit; but even before she came to the cottage she changed her mind. It was a deliciously warm, still afternoon.
Almost automatically she took the road towards Little Marlow; a desire for adventure had overtaken her. Why, she argued, shouldn’t she go into Wycombe? There were plenty of other women there. She would be quite safe. She only wanted to see what the place was like.
Her consciousness of perfect rectitude lasted until she reached the dip beyond Handy Cross. Farther than this she had not ventured before. Some mystery lay beyond the turn of the road.
She sat down in the grass by the wayside and called herself a fool, but she was afraid to go further. She and those friends of hers had made this place the entrance to a terrible and fascinating beyond. She remembered how they had feared to stay there in the failing light, daring each other to remain there alone after sunset. There was nothing to be afraid of, she said to herself; and yet she was afraid.
She was hot with her long climb, and the place was quite deserted. She decided to take down her hair to cool herself.
Curiously, she looked upon this simple act as deliciously daring and in some way wicked. She cast half-fearful glances at the green girt shadows of the descending road, as she shook out the masses of her hair. “If anyone should come!” she thought. “If he should come...!”
She giggled nervously, and shivered.
But as time passed, and no one came, she began to lose her fear, and presently she lay full length on the grass, and stared up into the pale blue dome of the sky until her eyes ached and she had to close them. The deep hush of the still afternoon enveloped her in a great calm.