"Good-bye, Janey," called Len from the orchard.
"Good-bye," sang out Nigel.
She waved her hand to them, not trusting herself to speak.
As soon as she was out of sight, she climbed into the fields, and walked across them to Old Surrey Hall. Here were the tangled borders of Kent—she plunged through a hedge of elder and crack-willow, and was in the next county. Quentin always used to say that there was a difference between the three counties, even where they touched in this corner. Surrey was park-like, and more sophisticated than the other two; one had wide, green spaces and dotted trees. Sussex was moor-like, covered with wild patches and pines, hilly and bare; Kent was untidy, tangled and lush, full of small, twisting lanes, weighted orchards and huddled farms. Janet passed the flat gable-end of Anstiel, buried in the thickets of its garden, and came out on the Gated Road. This wound down the valley of the hammer ponds to Redpale, Scarlets and Clay. It was seldom used, as there were gates every few hundred yards to prevent the cattle from straying, and in winter the hammer ponds sometimes overflowed.
Redpale was the first of the valley farms, and stood in a reed-grown hollow beside a wood. It was an old house, with a carnival of reds in its huge, sloping roof. Janet stole quickly through the yard and came up the garden to the door. It was opened before she reached it, and Quentin seized her hands.
"You've come at last—I've been watching for you."
He dragged her into the passage, banged the door, and kissed her in the dark.
"Come into the study," he cried eagerly. "Come and hallow me a hundred lonely evenings in one hour."