very long neck, and wore an expression of extreme foolishness.  From the frown with which he was accompanying his gaping stare it was evident that his mind was so vague and wandering that he found it difficult to concentrate it; she was reminded of an inexpert person she had once seen trying to put a white rabbit into a bag.  She looked again at the girl, with that contempt she felt, now that she had Richard, for all women who let themselves mate with unworthy men, and found that her dark eyes were fixed sullenly, almost hungrily, on Richard.  She laid her hand on Richard’s arm and cried:  “If it’s not impudence, it’s the next thing to it, staring like that into a pairson’s room!  They’re collecting, I suppose.  Away and give them a penny.”

“No,” said Richard.  “They are not collecting.  That is Roger.”

CHAPTER IX

Ellen could not understand why Richard whispered explosively as they turned away from the window:  “Pin up your hair!  Quickly!  We must go down at once!” or why he hurried her downstairs without giving her time to use her brush and comb.  When they got down into the old parlour Richard went to the side door that opened into the farmyard and flung it open, beginning a sentence of greeting, but there was nothing to be seen but the grey sheds, the wood-pile, and the puddle-pocked ground.  He uttered an exasperated exclamation, and drew it to, saying to Ellen:  “Open the front door!  Please, dear.”  She did so, but saw nothing save the dark and narrow garden and the black trees against the white north sky.  “What in Christ’s name are they doing?” Richard burst out, and flung open the side door again.  Both put their heads out over the threshold to see if the two visitors were standing about anywhere, and a gust of wind that was making the trees beat their arms darted down on the house and turned the draught between the two open doors into a hurricane.  Ellen squealed as her door banged and struck her shoulder before she had time to steer clear of it.  “Oh, my poor darling!” said Richard, and he was coming towards her, when they heard the glug-glug-glug of water dripping from the table to the floor, and saw that the draught had overturned a vase filled with silver boughs of honesty.  He picked it up and uttered another bark of exasperation, for it had cracked across and he had cut his hand on the sharp edge of the china.

“Oh, damn! oh, damn! oh, damn!” he cried, in a voice that rage made high-pitched and childish, sucking his finger in between the words.  “What a filthy mess!” He looked down on the wet tablecloth and the two halves of the vase lying in the bedabbled leaves with an expression of distaste so far out of proportion to its occasion that Ellen remembered uneasily how several times that day she had noticed in him traces of a desperate, nervous tidiness like Marion’s.  “If you ring for one of the maids she’ll soon clear it up,” she said soothingly, and moved