Twenty-four hours elapsed.

During this time Upworthy celebrated the return of a hero, for as such the fathers of the hamlet regarded John Exton. Much ale, some of it pre-war strength, was drunk in his honour. At the Chandos Arms, upon the afternoon following, the gaffers toasted him again and again. He had to tell the tale of his adventures and misadventures in Flanders and France. Everybody knew that he was engaged to Agatha.

It was well after five when John escaped from his entertainers and returned to Timothy’s cottage. Crossing the green he noticed that the sky was thunderously overcast. Agatha hurried out of the cottage as he approached it. All trace of anger and disappointment had vanished. She greeted her lover delightfully.

“I heard the cheers, Johnnie. I’m ever so proud of you.”

He nodded modestly.

“I asked ’em not to follow me because of your aunt. How is she?”

“A bit better, we fancy. Mr. Grimshaw is with her. He sent me out for a whiff of air. Perhaps he saw you crossing the green.”

John pointed to the tree and its comfortable encircling bench. He sat down, fanning his heated brow with his cap.

“Sultry, ain’t it? I say, Aggie, guess what bucks me most?”

“All the ale you’ve drunk.”

“They didn’t propose my health straight. They gave the toast: ‘Ephraim Exton’s son.’ They haven’t forgotten the old man.” Laying down his cap he fished out his pipe, regarding it rather helplessly.

“Let me fill your pipe, dear,” said Agatha.

John laughed.

“Can you do it, old girl?”

“Can I do it?”

She went to work with a skill that argued some practice, but John was not of a jealous disposition. He watched her deft fingers with admiration, remarking pleasantly:

“Little chunk of all-right, you are.”

“Don’t use up all your sugar, sergeant. There!”

She put the pipe between his smiling lips.

“Any matches, Johnnie?”

John took a silver match-box from his pocket.

“Catch!”

Agatha caught it, and examined it with interest. It was a queer old box, much engraved, obviously not of English make or design.

“What a handsome box!”

“Loot, Aggie. It belonged to a Boche. He’d no further use for it.”

She struck a match and lit his pipe, which John smoked as if he enjoyed it. Agatha stepped back and regarded him attentively. He was just right, in her opinion: a man who had done “his bit,” the man of her delicate choice, likely to make a sober, hard-working husband, clever enough and not too clever, one to be gently pushed by capable hands on to fortune. Smiling complacently, she seated herself beside him. John slipped his one available arm round her shapely waist. She held the match-box in her hand.

“Put your dear head on my shoulder,” he commanded.

“On the village green?”

“On my shoulder, I said.”

“I’ll risk it.”

She had glanced round, not seeing Nick, who had wandered out of his father’s garden, and was now behind the tree grinning broadly. John kissed the lips so near to his.

“Short o’ these rations, I am,” he declared with fervour. “Snug, I call it.”

Agatha, half-closing her eyes, murmured:

“I feel as if I was floating in heaven.”

“Blighty!” ejaculated the lover.

At this happy moment, Nick, crawling close up to Agatha, gripped her leg above the ankle, growling like a dog. Agatha screamed and jumped up.

“You blithering idiot!” said John. “Hop it—hop it!”

“Yes, I be village idiot, I be.”

“Not half the fool you look. Shift, I tell you.”

“I’ll make Aggie another fool’s-cap, I will. I can make anythin’ wi’ paper.”

He laughed shrilly and hopped off, as enjoined. John stared at his retreating figure, observing sapiently:

“He can make anything with paper. Fools make paper laws. Papers rule us in England.”

Agatha sat down again, nodding her intelligent head.

“That’s right. Papers do rule us. Why don’t you write to them, Johnnie?”

John betrayed slight astonishment.

“What about, dear?”

Agatha answered tartly:

“Conditions here.”

“Napoo,” replied John lazily.

Agatha was revolving this refusal in her mind when Grimshaw came out of the cottage carrying his bag. He was smiling, thinking of Cicely and her tryst with him.

Agatha nudged the somnolent John.

“Mr. Grimshaw is coming.”

John rose, and saluted stiffly as Grimshaw approached.

“Good day, sergeant. Going down the old, old trail, eh?”

John answered perfunctorily: “Yes, sir.”

Grimshaw looked at Agatha, who had not risen. This abstention was part of her new creed.

“I’ve no new instructions for you, Miss Farleigh. Keep your aunt quiet.”

Agatha replied as formally as John:

“Yes, sir. Is it typhoid, Mr. Grimshaw?”

“I did a Widal last night.” He added quickly, “that is a blood test. I am inclined to think your aunt has paratyphoid.”

John, impressed by the long word, said dismally:

“Then she’s a goner.”

“Oh, no. Paratyphoid is much less dangerous than typhoid. With ordinary care Mrs. Farleigh will recover. And, thank the Lord, I can trust you, Miss Farleigh, to see that she has more than ordinary care. Perhaps you will go to her now.”

Poor Agatha, thus torn from her lover, rose obediently, but with much ruffled plumage. Without a word she stalked into the cottage. Grimshaw said pleasantly:

“I’m sorry, but her aunt is alone.”

John answered bluntly but respectfully:

“Agatha’s upset after yesterday, and so am I.”

“After yesterday?” Grimshaw frowned, a frown that deepened as John continued emphatically:

“We expected you to stand by us, Mr. Grimshaw, and you didn’t. You know what lies behind things here; you must know that her ladyship hasn’t done her duty. And when I think of the trenches and the men in ’em it maddens me”—his voice trembled with excitement—“to see great ladies, like Lady Selina Chandos, downing those whom we are fighting, aye, and dying for. It makes me want to down her. And I will, by God!”

Grimshaw said quietly, but not without sympathy:

“You’re a good fellow, John Exton, but, believe me, you only see one side of this.”

“I see pretty plain that you’re not on that side, sir.”

“I’m not on the side of ranting. Ranting has wrecked many causes. It antagonises sane men and women. To charge Lady Selina with murder is—as I said yesterday—preposterous and ridiculous. I want to down not an individual but a system.”

“Her ladyship is part of the system, and the biggest part in Upworthy. That’s enough for me.”

He strode off without saluting. Grimshaw glanced at his watch. Cicely was not due yet. He sat down in John’s place, thinking hard, dismally conscious that he must appear a sorry figure in the eyes of Sergeant Exton, conscious also that he had won the very thing he wanted, Lady Selina’s approval, under false pretences. It was horrible to think that Exton regarded him as a hypocrite with malevolent eyes. And what did the man mean by his threats of “downing” Lady Selina? Then he laughed a little, because it was almost impossible to think of Lady Selina “downed.” Such imperturbable personalities were not downed by others. If the whole village rose in arms against her, if she were stoned on the village green, she would stand superbly erect till the end.

A light laugh roused these reflections. Cicely stood in front of him, smiling gaily. The pressure of her little hand was reassuring.

“Did you get mother’s invitation to dine with us to-night?”

“The august Stimson delivered it in person.”

“Who was wise?”

He laughed with her, although he replied sincerely:

“That question, dearest, can’t be answered yet.”

Ignoring this, Cicely sat down, saying:

“I am ever so happy. You don’t know what an impression you made upon mother yesterday. Now—keep it up.”

“That’s all right; but can I?”

“Of course you can, if you try hard enough.” Captivated by her manner, sitting close to her, he heard her soft whisper:

“Did you dream of me last night?”

“I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Didn’t you? Well, I lay awake till after one thinking of you.”

“You blessed little dear!”

She raised her eyes to his as if inviting him to gaze into their clear depths and to behold there his own image innocently enshrined. To dissemble with so artless a creature was quite impossible.

“Something is troubling you, Harry. Tell me!”

“Call it my conscience. To accept so much”—he spoke passionately—“and to be able to give so little; to know, as I do, that my love may bring distress and unhappiness upon you! Ah, that tears me! I must speak plainly now, or never. What is Upworthy to you? Have you ever tried to measure your feeling for this village and all that goes with it? Are you able to set a valuation, so to speak, upon it?”

“My dear old home.... I don’t quite see what you are driving at. What do you mean by a valuation?”

“I mean this. I lay awake last night realising the inevitable fact that if you marry me against your mother’s wishes you risk—disinheritance.”

“Disinheritance! Why, Harry, mother loves me. She would never do that. Never, never, never. You don’t know her——”

“I don’t. Do you? Does she know herself? Do any of us know ourselves? Are we able to say confidently what we would do, or not do, till some supreme test comes along?”

She considered his words carefully; her eyes clouded with perplexity, her lips quivered.

“You are making me miserable.”

“At what a cost to my own feelings! But we must face things together, as they are, not as we would like them to be. First and last, it comes to this: In your own irresistible way you have invited me to join what I call the great conspiracy of silence in Upworthy. Better men than I are amongst the conspirators. Dear old Pawley, for example. It is natural for him, ten thousand times more so for you, to ‘spare’ your mother, to keep her in cotton wool, to please, in a word, a personality so gracious, so kindly at heart, so sincerely anxious to do the right thing in, alas! the wrong way. But, as an honest man, Cicely, I side with her tenants as against her.”

“Heavens! Do you mean that you took mother’s part yesterday against your conscience, and that I tempted you to do so?”

“No, no; the murder charge was absurd. But I conveyed the impression to others that my sympathies lay with your mother in her management of this estate, and they don’t.”

“If you would listen to me....”

“God knows I want to listen to you, you witch.”

Cicely picked her way. To the man who was watching her it became plain that she knew her ground. Her confidence would have been amusing if lesser issues had been at stake.

“You can’t change things or people quickly, can you?”

“Earthquakes do.”

“Perhaps. Earthquakes don’t happen in English villages. If mother learnt to trust you instead of Gridley all that you wish might be brought about without—without friction. And if not altogether in her lifetime—afterwards. I will work hand-in-hand with you, Harry. I shall love it. Between us we will change Upworthy into a model village. I ask for nothing better. I know that mother wants me to-day as she never wanted me before. To hurt her now, to let others hurt her ... ah! ... that isn’t in me. Win mother as you have won me and we shall find our future happiness without imperilling hers.”

Her exact choice of words indicated her intelligence and the amount of thought that she must have given to so difficult a subject. Fiercest temptation assailed Grimshaw. And he had yielded, under far less pressure, to importunity in Essex and Poplar. After a tormenting pause he said hoarsely:

“It means whitewash, Cicely. I can find no other word.”

She touched his arm gently.

“I wish I were strong like you.”

“But I’m not strong,” he protested vehemently. “No one is. The strong man we read about is a writer’s lie. There isn’t a so-called strong man in history without a weak spot somewhere. Don’t make me weaker than I am. Perhaps—perhaps I ought to go away for a year and leave you free.”

The test propounded so tentatively failed utterly. In her turn she became vehement.

“No, no. If you leave me, Harry, it will be because your love is less than mine.”

As they gazed searchingly at each other a senile whistling was borne down the breeze. Cicely said desperately:

“Somebody is coming. Harry—suspense will kill me. Women understand women. Be patient, and mother will accept you as a son. I am sure of it. And I shall love the strength in you more if you show a little weakness now for my sake. Direct methods, which men use, are so brutal. I am pleading for our happiness. Promise me—quick!”

In her agitation she clung to him, pressing her soft body against his. He answered dully:

“All right, Cicely.”

The Ancient approached, redder than usual in the face. His gait was not perfectly steady. Cicely said hurriedly:

“It’s Nicodemus. He may pass on. Good day, granfer.”

Nicodemus halted, surveying the pair whimsically.

“Good day, miss. Good day, doctor. A rare starm be comin’ up. I feel ’un in my old boans.”

“You mustn’t get wet, Master Burble,” said the artful Cicely.

“Ah-h-h! I bain’t in no sart o’ hurry to invite meself, as the sayin’ is, to my own funeral. I be come from drinkin’ Johnny Exton’s health—a very notable set-to.”

Cicely still hoping that the garrulous old man would move on, said briskly:

“Yes; we heard some cheering up at the Hall.”

“Did ’ee now? Johnny be a valiant soul, but a sad Raddicle. I hope, miss, that her ladyship won’t mix me up wi’ him and Aggie Farleigh. I don’t hold wi’ such flustratious talk.”

“My mother knows that.”

Nicodemus uplifted his voice, thinking, possibly, that his wise words might penetrate the open windows in the Farleigh cottage:

“Rich folks, I allers say, should be treated wi’ respect—because why? They can make we pore ’uns so danged uncomfortsome. Beggin’ your pardon, miss, but I’ll sit me down under old tree. It ha’ seen a sight o’ things, to be sure.”

Grimshaw and Cicely exchanged rueful glances, sensible that the Ancient had diddled them squarely. He cackled on:

“Lumbager has me this instant minute. ’Twas the third tankard as done it.”

Grimshaw stood up, looking at his watch and addressing Cicely:

“I must see a patient on the Wilverley road.”

Cicely nodded, as he continued formally for the benefit of Nicodemus: “Better get home, Miss Chandos, before the storm breaks. Till—to-night.”

“Eight punctually, Mr. Grimshaw.”

He picked up his bag and strode off. Nicodemus smacked his lips.

“A very forcible man, doctor.”

“Yes, he is—and so are you, granfer.”

“A-h-h! Father o’ five I was at his age. How be Mary Farleigh, miss?”

“A shade better.” She looked up at the darkening skies. “I shall just have time to get home. Good night, Master Burble.”

“Good night, miss.”