Had not John Willie thought that he had better drag the bedding on which he was to sleep out into the sun at once, he would not have found the frock. It had been thrown across the roll of mattress and covered with that old piece of patchwork. Nor, since it was folded in a square, did he even then recognise the thing for a frock. Only when he had picked it up and it had revealed itself had he stood, suddenly arrested, alternately gazing at it and then looking obliquely at the floor. Then, as he had slowly put it down again, at its full length this time, there had peeped at him from half under the roll of mattress, first a white linen collar with one of the little sham pearl studs that are given away with such things still in one of its button-holes, and next a pair of tiny cylindrical cuffs....
Perhaps already, deep within himself, he had known that she was not far away....
Then, slowly and methodically, he had begun to search the hut. His search had been productive of the following discoveries:—
Thrust under the bed: A newish oval brown tin box (which he had not opened), and a pair of black shoes.
On the lower shelf of Sharpe's little provision-cupboard: a round narrow-brimmed black hat.
On the upper shelf, among cups, plates, and other odds and ends: A seven-pound paper bag half full of flour, and a mug with some still fresh milk in it—he tasted it.
Outside the hut: A stone or two in a little clearing in the fern, a stick-heap, the ashes of a recent fire, and a frying-pan.
Then he had re-entered the hut. He had sat down in one of the windsor chairs. He had been filling his third or perhaps his fourth pipe when she herself had appeared in the doorway.
All this had been the day before.