She only wanted him to come, to creep behind the yew and kiss her, as he had kissed that little pink fool, Nancy Turle. She didn’t trouble her head about anything more; didn’t add to her agitation by worrying over practical details. They could walk under the stars until dawn—anything. Mere trifles like food, sleep, sore feet, light head, were nothing. If only he would come! Those maddening hoofs kept ringing along the road. A dozen times she ran along the bricked path.
As the clock struck one she turned away, went under the hooded door like a thief, up the still staircase into her own room. She flung herself, wide awake, dry-eyed, and tingling, on her smooth bed.
At two she heard the steady passing of feet—not Boyce’s this time. With a strangled cry of joy she slipped off the bed and glided to the open window. The stars were clouded, and a violent summer rain struck straight from the sky. The feet stopped below Jethro’s window, a rattle of gravel went against the glass. She looked out cautiously; listened; heard Chalcraft tell his master that the ricks were not covered. Jethro answered back that he, too, had heard the rain, and would be down directly.
She heard him go down, heard the feet of the two men die away. Every star was hidden. It was too dark to see anything.
She returned to the bed without undressing. She lay there flat on her back, fully clothed, with her hands and lips clenched. Jethro came back to the house, to his bed. She heard him steal by her door without his shoes.
There was silence. Then the restless life of the farm began. Cocks crowed; there were feet along the wet road. Across the fields, through the dimness and mystery of the half-born day, Boyce, the cowman, was weirdly hooting in the morning mist for the cattle to come and be milked.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
“MOTHER used to say that when a girl was married she should wear a bonnet and never jest with gentlemen. Mrs. Clutton’s hats are very large, and her manner to Jim has always been flippant.”
Annie Jayne, her hair already thin at the temples, and her pretty narrow brow seamed with a thousand solicitous premature creases, looked down fondly at her second baby. Its legs had been unswathed; it was kicking and gurgling on the drawing-room rug.