She stayed, and in her fifth week she received the reward of her staying. Walking back to the farm late one evening, the moors veiled from her passion by the half-darkness, her Idea came back to her. It came, not yet with the vividness of flesh and blood, but like a ghost. It had ghostly hands and feet, and like a ghost it walked the road with her. But through its presence she felt in herself again that nascent ecstasy which foretold, infallibly, the onset of the incredible act and labour of creation.
When she reached the farm she found George Tanqueray sitting in the porch. The lamp-light through the open door revealed him.
"Whatever brought you here?" she said.
"What always brings me."
She understood him to mean that he also had been driven forth, and was in subjection to the Idea.
"Have you come to turn me out?" she said.
"No, Jinny."
He explained that he was staying in the village, at the Three Crowns. He had arrived that evening and had walked over.
He followed her into the deep kitchen. At the supper-table his place had been laid for him already. He had ordered it so.
He looked at her, smiling an apology.