He bent towards her and his lips closed on hers. She nearly fainted, but she did not struggle or try to scream. It seemed years that they stood linked by that unwilling kiss. At last he raised his head.
"Will you marry me, Naomi?"
"No—— Oh, no!"
"Why?"
"No—no—I can't—I won't!"
Strength came to her suddenly; it was like awaking from a nightmare. She thrust him from her, slipped past, and ran out of the room.
The next morning she returned to Rye. But she could not stay there. Her heart was all restlessness and dissatisfaction. Soon Mrs. Backfield announced that she was coming back.
"I reckoned she would," said Reuben.
She arrived in the swale. A tender grey mist was in the air, smeething Boarzell, mingling with the smoke of Odiam chimneys, that curled out wood-scented into the dark. As Naomi climbed from the carrier's cart which had brought her, she smelled the daffodils each side of the garden path. The evening was full of pale perfumes, of ghostly yellows, massing faintly amidst the grey.