If Edward had understood women better, he would have seen that this speech of his was a mistake; for even if a woman knows whether she wishes for a husband, she will never tell him so.

They turned home in a constrained silence. Foxy, frightened by a covey of partridges, created a diversion by pulling her cord from Hazel's inattentive hand and setting off for the parsonage.

'Oh! she'll be bound to go to the woods!' cried Hazel, beginning to run. 'Do 'ee see if she's in tub, Ed'ard, and I'll go under the trees and holla.'

Reddin was startled when he saw Hazel, who had out-distanced Edward, making straight for his hiding-place. She came running between the boles with an easy grace, an independence that drove him frantic. A pretty woman should not have that easy grace; she should have exchanged it for a matronly bearing by this time, and independence should have yielded to subservience--to the male, to him. With her vivid hair and eyes and her swift slenderness, Hazel had a fawn-like air as she traversed the wavering shadows. She passed his tree without seeing him, and stood listening. Then she began to plead with the truant. 'What for did you run away, Foxy, my dear? Where be you? Come back along with me, dear 'eart, for it draws to night!'

Reddin stepped from his tree and spoke to her.

With a stifled scream she turned to run away, but he intercepted her.

'No. I've waited long enough for this. So you're married to the parson, after all?'

'Ah.'

'You'll be sorry.'

'What for do you come tormenting of me, Mr. Reddin?'

'You were meant for me. You're mine.'

'Folk allus says I'm theirs. I'd liefer be mine.'

'As you wouldn't marry me, Hazel, the least you can do is to come and talk to me sometimes.'

'Oh, I canna!'

'You must. Any spare time come to this tree. I shall generally be here.'

'But why ever? And you a squire with a big place and fine ladies after you!'

'Because I choose.'

'Leave me be, Mr. Reddin. I be comforble, and Foxy be, and they're all settling so nice. The bird's sung.'

'The parson, too, no doubt. If you don't come often enough, I shall walk past the house and look in. If you go on not coming, I shall tell the parson you stayed the night with me, and he'll turn you out.'

'He wouldna! You wouldna!'

'Yes, I would. He would, too. A parson doesn't want a wife that isn't respectable. So as you've got to'--he dropped his harshness and became persuasive--'you may as well come with a good grace.'

'But it wunna my fault as I stayed the night over. It was aunt Prowde's. What for should folk chide me and not auntie?'

'Lord, I don't know! Because you're pretty.'

'Be I?'

'Hasn't that fellow told you so?'

'No. He dunna say much.'

'You could make such a good chap of me if you liked, Hazel.'

'How ever?'

'I'd give up the drink.'

'And fox-hunting?'

'Well, I might give up even that--for you. Be my friend, Hazel.'

He spoke with an indefinable charm inherited from some courtly ancestor. Hazel was fascinated.

'But you've got blood on you!' she protested.

'So have you!' he retorted unexpectedly. 'You say you kill flies, so you're as bad as I am, Hazel. So be my friend.'

'I mun go!'

'Say you'll come tomorrow.'

'Not but for a minute, then.'

Edward's voice came from the house.

'I've found her!'

Hazel ran home. But as she left the wood she turned and looked down the shadowy steeps of green at Reddin as he strode homewards. She watched him until he passed out of sight; then, sighing, she went home.

Chapter 19

Next day Hazel did not go into the woods. In the evening, sitting in the quiet parlour while Edward read aloud and Mrs. Marston knitted, she felt afraid as she remembered it. Yet she had been still more afraid at the idea of going.

She had helped Mrs. Marston to cover rhubarb jam in the dim store-room while Edward visited a sick man at some distance. It had been delightful, gumming on the clean tops, and then writing on them. She had dipped freely into the biscuit-box. Then Edward had returned, and they had gardened again. Now they were settled for the evening, and she was learning to knit, twisting obdurate wool round anarchic needles, while Mrs. Marston--the pink shawl top--chanted: 'Knit, purl! Knit, purl!'

'Will it come to aught ever?' queried Hazel. 'It's nought but a tail o'

string now!'

'It will come to anything you like to make, dear,' said the old lady.

'Is knitting so like life, mother?' Edward spoke amusedly.

'But it wunna,' said Hazel. 'It'll only come a tanglement,'

Edward suggested that he should help; there was great laughter over this interlude, while Mrs. Marston still chanted, 'Knit, purl!'