Captain Polkington, Johnny and Julia were busy in the garden. It was a fine afternoon following after two or three wet days and the ground was in splendid condition for planting, also for sticking to clothes. The sandy road to Halgrave dried quickly, but the garden, of heavier soil, did not, as was testified by Julia's boots—she had bought a small pair of plough-boy's boots that spring and was wearing them now, very pleased with the investment. By and by the sound of a motor broke the silence; the Captain and Johnny left off work to listen; at least, Johnny did; the Captain was hardly in a position to leave off, seeing that he was off most of his time.

"It sounds like a motor-car," Johnny said, as if he had made a discovery.

"Then it must have lost its way," Julia answered, giving all her attention to her cabbage plants.

Johnny said "Yes." It certainly seemed likely enough; the ubiquitous motor-car went everywhere certainly; even, it was possible to imagine, to remote and uninteresting Halgrave. But along the ill-kept sandy road which led to White's Cottage and nowhere else, none had been yet, nor was it in the least likely that one would ever come except by accident.

The sounds drew nearer. "It certainly is coming this way," the Captain said; "I will go and explain the mistake to the people."

The Captain went to the gate; but he did not stop there, nor did he explain anything. His eyesight, never having been subjected to strain or over work, was good, and the car, owing to the loose nature of the road, was not coming very fast; he saw it had only one occupant, a man who seemed familiar to him. For a second the Captain stared, then he turned and went into the house in surprising haste. He had not the least idea what had brought this man here; indeed, when he came to think about it, he was sure it must have been some mistake about the road. But he had no desire to explain; he felt he was not the person to do so, seeing that the last (and first) time he had seen the man was in an unpleasant interview at Marbridge. He connected several painful things, humiliation, undeserved epithets, and so on, with that interview and with the face of Rawson-Clew. Accordingly, he went into the house and waited, and the car came nearer and stopped.

Johnny and Julia went on with their work; they imagined the Captain was talking to the strangers; they had no idea of his discreet withdrawal until Julia came round the corner of the house to fetch a trowel, and saw Rawson-Clew coming up the path.

Julia's first feeling was blank amazement, but being a Polkington, and being that before she took to the simple life and its honest ways, she allowed nothing more than polite surprise to appear.

"Why!" she said, "I had no idea you were anywhere near here."

"I had no idea that you were until recently," he returned.

She wondered how recently; if it was this minute when chance brought her for the trowel—very likely it was, and he was here by accident.

"Have you lost your way?" she inquired.

"Not to-day."

"Where were you trying to go?"

"White's Cottage."

"Oh!" she said. He did not look amused, but she felt as if he were, and clearly it was not accident that had brought him.

"How did you know I was here?" she asked. "There are not many people who could have told you. I have retired, you know."

He settled his eyeglass carefully in the way she remembered, and looked first at the cottage and then at her. "I observe the retirement," he said; "but the corduroy?"

"I am wearing out my old clothes first," she answered.

Just then Johnny's voice was heard. "Hadn't I better water the plants?" it asked. Next moment Mr. Gillat came in sight carrying a big water can. "Julia hadn't I better—" he began, then he saw the visitor.

"Ah, Mr. Gillat," Rawson-Clew said. "How are you? I am glad to see you again; last time I called at Berwick Street you were not there."

Johnny set down the water can. "Glad to see you," he said beaming; "very glad, very glad, indeed"—he would have been pleased to see Rawson-Clew anywhere if for no other reason than that he had shown an interest in Julia's welfare.

Meanwhile Captain Polkington sat in the kitchen listening for the sound of the departing motor. But it did not come; everything was still except for the ceaseless singing of larks, to which he was so used now that it had come almost to seem like silence. He began to grow uneasy; what if, after all, Rawson-Clew were not here by accident and mistake. What if he had come on some wretched and uncomfortable business? The Captain could not think of anything definite, but that, he felt, did not make it impossible. The man certainly had not gone, he must be staying talking to Julia. Well, Julia could talk to him, she was more fit to see the business through than her father was. There was some comfort in this thought, but it did not last long, for just then the silence was broken, there was a sound of steps, not going down the path to the gate, but coming towards the kitchen door! The Captain rose hastily—it was too bad of Julia, too bad! He was not fit for these shocks and efforts; he was not what he used to be; the terrible cold of the winter in this place had told on his rheumatism, on his heart. He crossed the room quickly. The door which shut in the staircase banged as that of the big kitchen was pushed open.

"You had better take your boots off here, Johnny," Julia said; "you have got lots of mud on them."

She took off her own as she spoke, slipping out of them without having much trouble with the laces. Rawson-Clew watched her, finding a somewhat absurd satisfaction in seeing her small arched feet free of the clumsy boots.

"Are not your stockings wet?" he said.

"No," she answered; "not a bit."

"Are you quite sure? I think they must be."

"No, they are not; are they, Johnny?" She stood on one foot and put the other into Mr. Gillat's hand.

Johnny felt it carefully, giving it the same consideration that a wise housekeeper gives to the airing of sheets, then he gave judgment in favour of Julia.

"I was right, you see," she said; "they are quite dry."

She looked up as she spoke, and met Rawson-Clew's eyes; there was something strange there, something new which brought the colour to her face. She went quickly into the other kitchen and began to get the tea.

Johnny came to help her, and the visitor offered his assistance, too. Julia at once sent the latter to the pump for water, which she did not want. When he came back she had recovered herself, had even abused herself roundly for imagining this new thing or misinterpreting it. There was no question of man and woman between her and Rawson-Clew; there never had been and never could be (although he had asked her to marry him). It was all just impersonal and friendly; it was absurd or worse to think for an instant that he had another feeling, had any feeling at all—any more than she. And again she abused herself, perhaps because it is not easy to be sure of feelings, either your own or other people's, even if you want to, and it certainly is not easy to always want what you ought. Moreover, there was a difference; it was impossible to overlook it, she felt in herself or him, or both. She had altered since they parted at the Van Heigens', perhaps grown to be a woman. After all she was a woman, with a great deal of the natural woman in her, too, he had said—and he was a man, a gentleman, first, perhaps, polished and finished, her senior, her superior—yet a man, possibly with his share of the natural man, the thing on which one cannot reckon. Just then the kettle boiled and she made the tea.

"Where is father?" she asked; and Mr. Gillat went to look for him.

"He is up-stairs," he said when he came back; "he does not feel well, he says, not the thing; he'll have tea up there; I'll take it."

Julia looked at Rawson-Clew and laughed. "He does not feel equal to facing you," she said.

"Yes, yes," Johnny added, "that's it; that's what he says—I mean"—suddenly realising what he was saying—"he does not feel equal to facing strangers."

"Mr. Rawson-Clew is not a stranger," Julia answered; she took a perverse delight in recalling the beginning of the acquaintance which she knew quite well was better ignored. "How odd," she said, turning to Rawson-Clew, "that father should have forgotten you, just as you told me you had forgotten him and all about the time when you saw him."

"I expect he regarded the matter as trivial and unimportant, just as I did," Rawson-Clew answered; "though if I told you I had forgotten all about it I made a mistake; I can hardly say that; I remember some details quite plainly; for instance, your position—you stood between your father and me—very much as you did between me and the Van Heigens."

"I did not!" Julia said hotly, pouring the tea all over the edge of the cup; "I didn't stand between you and the Van Heigens. I mean—"

"Allow me!" Rawson-Clew moved the cup so that she poured the tea into it and not the saucer.

"Dear, dear!" Johnny said; he had not the least idea what they were talking about, but he fancied that one or both must be annoyed, perhaps by the upsetting of the tea; he could think of nothing else. "Such a mess," he said; "and such a waste. Is the cup ready? Shall I take it up-stairs?"

"No, thank you," Julia said; "I will take it."

Rawson-Clew did not seem to mind, and Julia, after she had lingered a little with her father, decided to come down again. If she stayed away she knew perfectly well that Johnny would do nothing but talk about her; moreover it was absurd to be put out because Rawson-Clew could answer better than Mr. Gillat; that was one of the reasons for which she had liked him.

Captain Polkington sipped his tea and ate his bread and butter peacefully. Julia had told him Mr. Rawson-Clew would not be staying long; she had not exactly said why he was come, it seemed rather as if she did not know; but apparently nothing unpleasant had happened so far and he would be going soon, directly after tea no doubt. So the Captain sat contentedly and listened for the sound of going, but he did not hear it; they were a very long time over tea, he thought.

They were; two of them were purposely spinning it out, the third was only a happy chorus. Julia was in no hurry to face the questions about the explosive which she feared must come when Johnny's restraining presence was removed. She knew, as soon as she was sure Rawson-Clew's coming was design and not accident, that he must have suspected her; he had come to talk about it and he would do so as soon as he got the chance, so she put it off. And he was quite willing to wait too; he was enjoying the present moment with a curious light-hearted enjoyment much younger than his years. And he was enjoying the future moment, too, in anticipation, albeit he was a little shy of it—he did not quite know how he was to close with the garrison in the citadel even though he might have taken all the outposts.

But at last tea was done and the table cleared and all the things taken to the outer kitchen to be washed. Julia decreed that she and Johnny were to do that, then unthinkingly she sent her assistant for a tea-cloth. Rawson-Clew was standing by the doorway when Johnny passed; he followed him out.

"Mr. Gillat, your plants want watering," he said, quietly but decisively.

"They do, they do," Johnny agreed; "I will have to do them by and by."

"Do them now, it is getting late."

"It is," Mr. Gillat admitted; "we were late with tea, but there's the drying of the cups."

"I will do that."

Johnny hesitated; Julia's wish was his law, still there seemed no harm in the exchange; anyhow, without quite knowing how it happened, he soon afterwards found himself in the garden among the water cans.

Rawson-Clew went back to the outer kitchen. Julia looked round as she heard his step, and seeing that he was alone, recognised the manoeuvre and the arrival of the inevitable hour.

"Well," she said, coming to the point in a business-like way now that it was unavoidable; "what is it you want?"

"I want to know several things," he said, shutting the door. "Principally why you called your daffodil 'The Good Comrade?'"

"The daffodil!" she repeated in frank amazement; she was completely surprised, and for once she did not attempt to hide it.

"Yes," Rawson-Clew said; "why did you call it 'The Good Comrade?'"

Julia began to recover herself and also her natural caution. This was not the question she expected, but the rogue in her made her wary even of the seemingly simple and safe. "I called it after three friends," she said, "who were good comrades to me—you, Johnny and Joost Van Heigen. Why do you ask?"

"Because I wondered if it was a case of telepathy; I also named something 'The Good Comrade.'"

"You?" she said. "What did you name? Was it a dog?"

"No, a bottle—small, wide-necked, stopper fastened with a piece of torn handkerchief, about two-thirds full of a white powder!"

Julia had begun washing the cups; she did her best to betray no sign, and really she did it very well; her eyelids flickered a little and her breath came rather quickly, nothing more.

"Why did you name it?" she asked. "It is rather odd to do so, isn't it?"

"I named it after the person who gave it to me."

Julia's breath came a little quicker; she forgot to remark that the same reason had helped her in naming her flower; she was busy asking herself if he meant her by the good comrade.

"Perhaps I did not exactly name my bottle," he went on to say, "but it stood for the person to me. It was a sort of physical manifestation—rather a grotesque one, perhaps—of a spiritual presence which had not really left me since a certain sunny morning last year."

"That is very interesting," Julia managed to say; her native caution had not misled her; the innocently beginning talk had taken a devious way to the expected end.

"It was interesting," Rawson-Clew said, "but not quite satisfying, at least not to the natural man. He is not content with a manifestation any more than with a spiritual presence; he wants a corporal fact."

Julia looked up; the talk was taking an unforseen turn that she did not quite follow, so she looked up. And then she read something in his face that set her heart beating, that made her afraid, less perhaps of him than of herself, and the thrill that ran like fire through her body.

"I don't quite understand," she said, and dropped a cup.

It was meant to fall on the flagged floor and break; it would create a diversion, and picking up the pieces would give her time to get used to the suffocating heart-beats. She had enough of the Polkington self-mastery left to think of the manoeuvre and its advisability, but not enough to carry it out properly; the cup fell on the doubled-up tea-cloth that lay at her feet and was not broken at all. Nevertheless the incident and her own contempt for her failure steadied her a little.

Rawson-Clew picked up the cup. "Do you not understand," he said. "It is quite simple; I have put it to you before, too—not in the same words, but it comes to the same—the plain terms used then were—will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?"

Julia's heart seemed to stop for a second, then it went on heavily as before, but she only asked, "Did you not get my letter, the one I wrote in Holland about that?"

"The one when you told me of your arrangements? By the way you did not mention that you were going to Van de Greutz's for the explosive, yes, I got that, but it was scarcely an answer."

"I explained that it meant 'no.'"

"In a postscript; you cannot answer a proposal of marriage in a postscript."

There really does not seem sufficient ground to justify this statement, still she did not combat it. "Can't I?" she said. "Then I will answer it now—no. It was good of you to offer, generous and honourable, but, of course, I should not accept. I mean, I could not even if there had been any need, and, as you see, there was not a particle of need then, still less now."

"No need, no," he answered, and there was a new note in his voice; "it is not a case of necessity or anything of the sort. Put all that nonsense of justice and honour and gratitude out of the question, you know that it does not come in. I own it did weigh somewhat then, but now—now I want the good comrade; I don't deserve her, or a tithe of what she has done for me, but I can't do without her—herself, the corporal fact—don't you know that?"

"No," Julia said; somehow it was all she could say.

"You don't know it? Then I'll tell you." But he did not for she prevented him.

"Please don't," she said. "You cannot really want me because you do not really know me. Oh, no, you do not!"

"I think I do; I know enough to begin with; the rest of the ignorance you can remedy at your leisure."

"My leisure is now," she said; "I will tell you several things, I will tell you how I got the explosive. I went as a cook and stole like a thief—you could have got it as easily as I if you would have stooped as readily as I did. You admire that? Perhaps so, now, but you would not if you had seen it being done. That is the sort of thing I do, and I will tell you the sort of thing I like. The day I came home from Holland I did what I liked—as soon as I reached London I went to Johnny Gillat, my dear old friend, who I love better than any one else in the world, and we had a supper of steak and onions in a back bedroom, and we enjoyed it—you see what my tastes are? Afterwards I heard how father had taken to drink and mother had got into debt—you see what a nice family we are?"

But here Rawson-Clew stopped her. "I knew something like this before," he said; "the details are nothing; I do not see what it has to do with the matter."

"It ought to have a lot," she answered. "But even if you do know it and a good deal more and realise it too, which is a different thing, there is still the other side. I don't know you, I don't even know your name."

Then he remembered that he must have signed that offer of marriage, as he signed all letters, and so left himself merely "H. F. Rawson-Clew" to her.

"You see," she was saying, "it is a mistake for people who don't know each other very well to marry, they would always be getting unpleasant surprises afterwards. Besides, it would be so uncomfortable; it must be pretty bad to live at close quarters with some one you were—who you didn't know very well, with whom you minded about things."

She had touched on something that did matter now, that might matter very much indeed; Rawson-Clew realised it, and realised with a start of pain, that there might be a great gulf between him and the good comrade after all. Her quick intuitions and perceptions had bridged it over and led him to forget that he was a man of years and experience while she was a girl, a young, shy, half-wild thing, veiled, and fearing to draw the veil for his experienced eyes.

"Tell me," he said, facing her and looking very grave and old, "is that how you feel about me?"

She fidgeted the tea-cloth with her foot, but being a Polkington, she was able to answer something. "We belong to different lots of people," she said, examining the shape the thing had taken on the floor; "I have got my life here, working in my garden and so on; and you have got yours a long way off among greater things."

"You have not answered me," he said. "Tell me—am I the man you described?"

He turned her so that she could look at him, the thing she dared not do. His touch was light, almost momentary, but it was too much, it thrilled through her wildly, irresistibly, and she drew back fearing to do anything else.

"Don't!" she said, and her voice was sharp with the anger of pain.

He stepped back a pace. "Thank you," he said; "I am answered."

Captain Polkington had been dozing; there really was nothing else to do; but suddenly he was aroused; there was a sound below; the motor moving at last. Yes, it was going, really going; he went to the window and, taking care not to be seen, watched the car go down the sandy road. After that he went down-stairs, and finding Johnny, who had finished his watering, persuaded him to come for a stroll on the heath. They took a basket to bring home anything they might find, and shouted news of their intention to Julia, who did not answer, then set out.

Now, in the present state of their development, motors are not things on which a man can always rely. More especially is this the case when any one like Mr. Gillat has had anything to do with them. The obliging Johnny, had arranged the inside of Rawson-Clew's car, covering up what he thought might be hurt by the sun and blowing sand while it stood at the roadside, and taking into the house when he went in to tea, anything that could be stolen if—as was quite out of the question—one came that way with a mind to steal. Johnny had brought back most of the things and replaced them before Rawson-Clew started, but not quite all. When the car had got a little distance down the road it, with a perversity worthy of a reasonable being, developed a need for the forgotten item. Rawson-Clew searched for it, could not find it, discovered that he could not get on without it, and, thinking if not saying something not very complimentary about Mr. Gillat, walked back to the cottage.

He supposed he would find Johnny in the garden, but he did not; he and the Captain were some way out on the heath now, and, fortunately for the latter's peace, neither saw any one approach the cottage. Rawson-Clew looked round the garden and finding no one decided, rather reluctantly, that he must go to the house. He did not want to meet Julia again; he thought it rather unlikely that she should still be in the kitchen, but there was a chance of it, so he approached with a view to reconnoitering before presenting himself. The outer kitchen, which partook rather of the nature of a wash-house, had a large unglazed window; when he drew near to this he heard a noise from within. It sounded like some one sobbing, not quiet sobs, but slow deep spasmodic ones like the last remains of a tempest of tears which has not spent itself but only been imperfectly suppressed by sheer will. Rawson-Clew paused though possibly he had no business to do so.

"Oh, why," one wailed from within, "why is not father dead? If he were dead—if only he had been dead!"

The unglazed window was large and rather high up, but Rawson-Clew was a man of fair height; he was also usually considered an honourable one, but when he heard the voice, saying something which was plainly only meant for the hearing of Omnipotence, he did not go away. He put his hands on the flintwork of the window-sill and in a moment found himself in the twilight of the unceiled kitchen.

Julia was crouching in a corner, her elbows on the old chopping-block, her face hidden on her tightly-clenched hands, while she struggled angrily with the shaking sobs. For a moment she struggled, then mastered herself somehow and looked up, perhaps because she meant to rise and set about her work. She had been crying hard and tears do not improve the average face, certainly they did not hers; and she had been trying hard to stop, cramming a screwed-up handkerchief into her eyes and that did not improve matters either. One would have said her face could have expressed nothing but the extremity of unbecoming woe, yet when she caught sight of Rawson-Clew standing just under the window it changed extraordinarily and to anger.

"Go away!" she said; "go away! Do you hear?"

Rawson-Clew did not go away; he came nearer and Julia drew further into the corner, ensconsing herself behind the chopping-block, and looking about as inviting of approach as a trapped rat.

"Julia," he said.

"Go away!" was her only answer.

"Why did you send me away?"

"Because I wanted you gone."

"Because Captain Polkington is not dead? Is that it?"

"You are a dishonourable eavesdropper! No, it wasn't that."

He sat down on the chopping-block barricading her corner so that she could not get out without stepping over him. "Do you know it strikes me that you are not strictly honest either, at least not strictly truthful just now."

Julia tugged at her skirt; the chopping-block was on the hem and he on it so that she could not get free. "Will you please go," she said, with a catch in her breath. That is the worst of these half-suppressed, unspent storms of tears, they have such a tendency to return and break out again inconveniently.

"If it were not for Captain Polkington would you have sent me away?" he asked.

"Y—e—s," she answered, fighting with her tears. "Oh, go! Please, please go!"

She crumpled herself into a small miserable heap and he leaned over the block and drew her into his arms.

For a moment she struggled, burrowing her head into his coat; there was a good deal of burrowing and not much struggling. "No, you wouldn't," he said to her hair, "you would have married me."

"I might have said I would, but I shouldn't really have done it," she contended without looking up. "I shouldn't when it came to the point. You had better let me go, I am spoiling your coat, my face is all wet—and I don't know where my handkerchief is."

"Take mine, you will find it somewhere. Tell me, why would you not have married me when it came to the point? Because your courage failed you?"

No answer; then, "I can't find that handkerchief."

"You have not tried. Are you afraid to try? Are you afraid of me? Is that why you would not have married me—you would have been afraid to live at close quarters with me? Do you still think you don't know me well enough?"

"I don't know your name."

The answer was ridiculous, but he knew how the ridiculous touched even tragedies for Julia.

"Hubert Farquhar Rawson-Clew," he said solemnly. "Now—"

But whatever was to have followed was prevented, for at that moment she looked up, and for some reason, suddenly decided things had gone far enough, and so freed herself.

"I don't think it matters much what I should have done," she said, "or why, either. Father is not dead; you ought to know better than to talk about such a thing; it is bad taste."

"Does that matter in the simple life? I thought when you retired you were going to dispense with falsity and pretences, and say and do honestly what you honestly thought, when it did not hurt other people's feelings."

"So I do," she answered; "that is why, when I thought I was alone just now, I asked out loud how it was that father was still alive. Since then I have seen."

"What have you seen?"

"That it is to prevent me from making a great muddle of things. If he had been dead I dare say I should have married you—I may as well confess it since you know—and we both should have repented it ever afterwards. As it is, if I were free to-morrow, I would know better than to do it."

He did not seem much troubled by the last statement. "We should have had to talk things over," he said.

"No, talking wouldn't have been any good," she answered; "there is a great distance between us."

He looked down at the space of red tiles that separated them. "That is rather remediable," he observed.

"Do you think I am not in earnest?" she said. "I am. There is a real barrier; besides all these things I have mentioned there is something else that cuts me off. I have a debt to pay you and until it is paid, if I were your own cousin, I could not stand on the same platform."

"A debt?" he repeated the word in surprise. His young cousin's loan to Captain Polkington had slipped his memory, and even if it had not, its connection with the present would not have occurred to him. Julia had been there, it is true, when the affair was talked of eighteen months ago, and he himself had unofficially paid the money to end the matter, but he never dreamed of connecting either her or himself with it now. Still less would he have dreamed that she considered herself bound to pay him what her father had borrowed from another.

"What debt?" he asked, thinking the word must be hyperbolical, and meant to stand for something quite different, though he could not imagine what.

"You have forgotten?" she said. "I thought you had; that only shows the distance more plainly; you have one standard for yourself and another for me."

"Tell me what it is and let us see if we cannot compound it."

But she shook her head. "It can't be compounded," she said; "you will know when I pay it."

"And when will that be?"

"Ten years, twenty perhaps, I don't know. I thought once or twice before I could pay it—with the blue daffodil once, and once when I first got the cottage and things—I thought, to be sure, I could do it; it seemed a Heaven-sent way. But"—with a little glint of self-derision—"Heaven knows better than to send those sort of easy ways to the Polkingtons; they are ill-conditioned beasts who only behave when they are properly laden by fate, and not often then. Now you know all about it, so won't you say good-bye and go?"

"I don't know about it and, what is more, I don't care. I am not going to let this unknown trifle, this scruple—"

Just then there came the sound of voices outside; Mr. Gillat and Captain Polkington unwarily coming back before the coast was clear.

"Yes," Johnny was saying, "he came to see me in town, you know—or rather you, but you were out—"

"He came to see me? He"—there was no mistaking the consternation in the Captain's tone, nor his meaning either.

Julia and Rawson-Clew looked at one another; both had forgotten the Captain's existence for a moment; now they were reminded, and though the reminder seemed incongruous it was perhaps opportune.

"There is father," Julia said.

And he nodded. One cannot make love to a man's daughter almost in his presence, when the proviso of his death is an essential to any satisfaction. Rawson-Clew went to the door. "Good-bye," he said, "for the present."

"Good-bye for always," she answered.

She spoke quite calmly, in much the same tone when, on the morning after the excursion to the Dunes, she had bid him good-bye and tried to face the consequences alone. She had had so many tumbles with fate that it seemed she knew how to take them now with an indifferent face. At least, nearly always, not quite—the wood block still lay before the corner in which she had crouched the marks on his coat where her tears had fallen were hardly dry. There was passion and to spare behind the indifferent face, passion that for once at least had broken through the self-mastery.

He held out his hand and she put hers into it. "Good-bye," he repeated; "good-bye for the present, brave little comrade."