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was coming and you were listening too hard for that. I stood there, just below you, as if we were waiting for the train together. I don’t think they suspected anything;—though they must have thought it odd—about your stick, and my dragging you back so suddenly.—But I don’t think they suspected anything, really.’

Monica’s marvelling gaze remained fixed upon her face. ‘I suppose,’ she said, after a pause, ‘that it was for Clive’s sake you did it.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Hester, also after a pause and again glancing at her. ‘I didn’t want you to commit suicide.’ And again with the bitter flicker of a smile she added: ‘And I can understand wanting to get under a train just as well as you can, Monica.’

Now a long silence fell. A golden sunset had slowly embued the sky and through the openings of the wood it slanted over the pine-needles to Monica’s feet and fell warmly on her face and hands. It was like a peaceful tide stealing in upon them, and she was content to sit there and feel it take her, hearing suddenly that the air was full of soft, autumnal insect murmurs, rising and falling joyously, while the brooding fields were like a mother’s breast. She closed her eyes. It seemed to her that