The door was wide open at Sparrow Hall, and a square of sunshine lay on the kitchen floor. In the little flower-stuffed garden bees were humming lazily, and a thrush was singing in the last of the laburnum. Tangles of roses trailed over the farm-house walls, they hung round the window-frames, darkening the rooms, and over the door, sending faint perfumes to Janey as she sat in the kitchen.

She looked pale and washed-out with the heat. The outlines of her splendid figure were drooping, and there was an ominous hollowing of the curves of her face and arms. She sat at the table, her cheek resting on her palm, reading from a pile of letters. They were long letters, closely written in a sharp, scrawling hand, on thin paper that crackled gently as she fingered it. Every now and then she looked up anxiously, and seemed to listen. Then her head would bow again, and the paper would crackle softly as before.

At last the garden gate clicked, and she saw the postman\'s cap coming up the path between the rows of sweet peas. She sprang to her feet, trembling and fighting for her self-command. She reached the door just as he lifted his hand to knock.

"A letter for you, miss," and old Winkworth smiled genially.

The colour rushed over Janey\'s cheeks like a wave, then as a wave ebbed out again. She[Pg 202] took the letter with a hand that shook piteously, her lips parted and a low laugh broke from them. Then suddenly her expression changed—in such a manner that Winkworth muttered anxiously—

"Fine afternoon, ain\'t it, miss?"

"Yes—a glorious afternoon. Good-day, Winkworth."

"Good-day, miss," and he shambled off.

Janey turned into the house, and dropping into her chair by the table, began to sob childishly. It was more from exhaustion than grief—the exhaustion of hopes strained to breaking-point, and then allowed to relax again into disappointment and frustration. She was so dreadfully tired—she so longed to sleep, quietly, deeply, at once. She laid her head on the table, and her shoulders heaved, straining and struggling as if the burden of her sorrow were physical.

Then suddenly she noticed the unopened letter, and her sobs broke out with even greater vehemence. Nigel! poor Nigel! She had not opened his letter—she had flung it aside and forgotten it, because it was not Quentin\'s. It was the day of his concert, too—what a beast she felt!

She tore open the envelope, and wiped away the tears that blinded her.

    "My own dear Janey,

    "This is just to keep myself from thinking of that damned concert. It\'s scaring me a bit—more than a bit, in fact. Who would have thought that any one with my past could suffer from stage[Pg 203] fright?—but that little thing of Scriabin\'s is the very devil. Old von G. has been ragging me no end over it—we nearly came to blows last practice. I hope you and the lad don\'t mind my not wanting you to come up for the show; I feel it would be the last straw for you two to see me make a fool of myself—not that I mean to, but you never know what may happen. Cheer up—you shall come and help me when I fill the Albert Hall.

    "By the way, I saw that little bounder Quentin Lowe at a concert at the Queen\'s last Sunday.

    "Now, good-bye; I\'m turning into bed. This time to-morrow it\'ll all be over, and I\'ll send you a telegram. Greetings to the lad.

    "Ever yours, dear,
    "Nigel."

Janey folded the letter with trembling hands. It filled her with a kind of pitiful anguish, for she knew that the only thing in it that interested her was the reference to Quentin. Nigel\'s wonderful concert, about which she and Len had dreamed so many dreams, had faded into the background of her thoughts, driven out by her sleepless, bruising anxiety for her lover.

It was over a fortnight since he had written. She had before her his last letter, in which he said: "I will write again in a day or two, and tell you the exact date of my return." She had waited, but the letter had not come. She had written, but had had no answer. What could have happened?

[Pg 204]

There had been nothing in the past few weeks to make her expect this silence. His last bid for independence had met with more success than the others. He had fought hard against failure and discouragement, and had now found work on one or two good dailies. Their marriage was at last in sight. He was expected home for a couple of weeks\' holiday, then he would work on through the autumn, and there was no reason why, if things prospered, they should not be married soon after Christmas.

Yes—at last their marriage was a thing to be reckoned with, talked about, and planned for. For the first time Janey could consider such things as home and outfit, breaking the news to her brothers, and leaving Sparrow Hall—all were now within the range of probability and expectation. But a terrible gloom had settled on these last days. It was not merely her sorrow at leaving the farm and the boys—it was something less accountable and more tempestuous than that. It had its source in Quentin\'s letters. She could see that he was not happy—their marriage, their longed-for, prayed-for, wept-for, worked-for marriage, was not bringing him happiness. On the contrary, his suffering seemed to have increased. His doubts and forebodings had been transferred from material circumstances to more subtle terrors of soul—he doubted the future more passionately, because more spiritually, than ever.

Janey had not been able to understand this at first, but in time his attitude had communicated itself to her, though whether her distrust was [Pg 205]independent or merely a reflection of his, it would be hard to say. Anyhow, she doubted—fiercely, miserably, despondingly. She had started, on his recommendation, to make herself some clothes, but the work lagged and depressed her. She found herself hungering for the early times of their courtship, when their marriage was a dream made golden by distance. She thought of the days when his name had rung like bells in her heart, without a horrid dissonance of fear, when his letters were pure joy, and the thought of meeting him pure anticipation. Would those days return?—And now, here was his silence, consuming her. Why didn\'t he write? He had been so eager in his last letter, though, as usual, eagerness had soon been throttled by despair.

    "I shall have you—I shall have you at last, my beautiful, tall Janey, for whom I hunger. But I am filled with doubts. There are some men in whose mouths manna turns to dust and the water of life to gall. Everything I touch is doomed. Either my soul or my body betrays me—my soul is so hot and my body so weak—so damnably weak. If only my hot soul had been given a stout body, or my weak body a weak soul ... then I should have been happy. But now it is the eternal fight between fire and water."

Janey pushed the letter aside, and picked up another. She had been trying to comfort herself with Quentin\'s letters, but they were not on the whole of a comforting nature. His restless misery was in them all. If his last letter had been happy,[Pg 206] she would not have worried nearly so much. She would have put down his silence to some trite external cause—pressure of work or indefiniteness of plans—he had always been an erratic correspondent. But his unhappiness opened a dozen roads to her morbid imaginings. It was dreadful to think that all she had given to Quentin had only made him more unhappy.

Perhaps he was too miserable to write—not likely, since he was one of those men whom despair makes voluble, but nevertheless a real terror to her unreason. Perhaps he had not received her last letter, and thought that she had played him false—he had always been jealous and inclined to suspicion. This last idea obtained a hold on her that would have been impossible had not her mind been weakened by anxiety. She had heard of letters going astray in the post, and probably Quentin had been expecting one from her, and not receiving it had been too proud to write himself. Or perhaps he had received it, but had thought it cold. He had often taken her to task for some fancied coldness which she had never meant.

In her desperation she resolved to write again. Hastily cramming his letters into the boot-box where she unromantically kept them, she seized paper and ink, and began to scrawl despairingly—

    "My Darling, Darling Boy,

    "Why don\'t you write? Didn\'t you get my last letter? I posted it on the 16th. Quentin, I[Pg 207] can\'t stand this suspense. Are you unhappy? Oh, my boy, my boy, my heart aches for you. I know you suf............