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led her through miles of country, to the little wood behind The Crofts where the primroses grew in spring. She had walked blindly, not caring where she went, and when she found herself now so near Hester, she knew a moment of panic. Not for anything must Hester see her.

She left the wood and climbed the hill with hurrying footsteps, following a sheep-track that led to the summit, where Clive and Celia had come last night, and sitting down to rest for a moment she retraced the scene; Hester’s dark form reclining here, her angry eyes as she had raised herself and watched the two approach her. What had Hester felt on seeing them there, so confidently together? Had not a dim presage crossed her mind of her own dispossession? And how had she dared show anger towards Clive?

From where she sat she could see Oddley Green below her, her little house with its curling smoke and the thin line of the fountain on the lawn; all the roads laid out and the railway line with its bordering copses; and then her eye was drawn suddenly near; for there, appearing over the crest of the hill, was little Robin in his blue linen smock, walking slowly towards her, as if in sad meditation. Robin was a sad little boy; she thought it again as she watched