Will checked himself on an unpleasant thought.  Was his vanity, in truth, unconcerned in this story?  Why, then, had he been conscious of a sub-emotion, quite unavowable, which contradicted his indignant sympathy during that talk last night in the street?  If the lover’s jealousy were as ridiculous as he pretended, why did he feel what now he could confess to himself was an unworthy titillation, when Franks seemed to accuse him of some part in the girl’s disloyalty?  Vanity, that, sure enough; vanity of a very weak and futile kind.  He would stamp the last traces of it out of his being.  Happily it was but vanity, and no deeper feeling.  Of this he was assured by the reposeful sigh with which he turned his head upon the pillow, drowsing to oblivion.

One unbroken sleep brought him to sunrise; a golden glimmer upon the blind in his return to consciousness told him that the rain was over, and tempted him to look forth.  What he saw was decisive; with such a sky as that gleaming over the summer world, who could lie in bed?  Will always dressed as if in a fury; seconds sufficed him for details of the toilet, which, had he spent minutes over them, would have fretted his nerves intolerably.  His bath was one wild welter—­ not even the ceiling being safe from splashes; he clad himself in a brief series of plunges; his shaving might have earned the applause of an assembly gathered to behold feats of swift dexterity.  Quietly he descended the stairs, and found the house-door already open; this might only mean that the servant was already up, but he suspected that the early riser was Jane.  So it proved; he walked toward the kitchen garden, and there stood his sister, the sun making her face rosy.

“Come and help to pick scarlet runners,” was her greeting, as he approached.  “Aren’t they magnificent?”

Her eyes sparkled with pleasure as she pointed to the heavy clusters of dark-green pods, hanging amid leaves and scarlet bloom.

“Splendid crop!” exclaimed Will, with answering enthusiasm.

“Doesn’t the scent do one good?” went on his sister.  “When I come into the garden on a morning like this, I have a feeling—­oh, I can’t describe it to you—­perhaps you wouldn’t understand—­”

“I know,” said Will, nodding.

“It’s as if nature were calling out to me, like a friend, to come and admire and enjoy what she has done.  I feel grateful for the things that earth offers me.”

Not often did Jane speak like this; as a rule she was anything but effusive or poetical.  But a peculiar animation shone in her looks this morning, and sounded in her voice.  Very soon the reason was manifest; she began to speak of the Applegarth business, and declared her great satisfaction with it.

“There’ll be an end of mother’s worry,” she said, “and I can’t tell you how glad I shall be.  It seems to me that women oughtn’t to have to think about money, and mother hates the name of it; she always has done.  Oh, what a blessing when it’s all off our hands!  We shouldn’t care, even if the new arrangement brought us less.”