His tone was so innocent that Reddin was suspicious.

'You didn't bring her yourself, did you?'

'Now, _is_ it me,' said Vessons, reasonable but hurt, 'as generally brings these packs of unruly women to Undern?'

'I believe you're lying, Vessons.'

Vessons opened his mouth to say, 'Notice is giv''; but seeing that in his master's present mood it might be accepted, he closed it again.

When Reddin went in, Sally was gone, and Hazel, much as usual, ministered to his comfort. The only signs of the recent tumult were the constrained silence and the array of cups and plates.

'You'd better understand once and for all,' he said at last, 'that I'll never have that woman here.'

'Not if I went?'

'Never! I'd kill her first.'

'What for did you tell me lies?'

'Because you were so pretty and I wanted you.'

The flattery fell on deaf ears.

'Them chillun's terrible ugly,' said Hazel wearily.

Reddin came over to her.

'But yours'll be pretty!' he said.

'Dunna come nigh me!' cried Hazel fiercely. 'She says I'm going to have a little 'un! It was a sneak's trick, that; and you're a cruel beast, Jack Reddin, to burn my bees and kill the rabbits and make me have a little 'un unbeknown.'

'But it's what all women expect!'

'You'd ought to have told me. She says it's mortal pain to have a baby, and I'm feared--I'm feared!'

'Hazel,' he said humbly, 'I may as well tell you now that I mean to marry you. The parson must divorce you. Then we'll be married. And I'll turn over a new leaf.'

'I'll ne'er marry you!' said Hazel, 'not till Doom breaks. I dunna like you. I like Ed'ard. And if I mun have a baby, I'd lief it was like Ed'ard, and not like you.'

With that she went out of the room, and he noticed that she was wearing the dress she had come in, and not the silk.

He sat by the fire, brooding; but at last managed to cheer himself by the thought that she would get over it in time. She was naturally upset by Sally just now.

'And, of course, the parson'll never take her back, nor her father,' he reflected. 'Yes, it'll all come right.'

He was upheld in this by the fact that Hazel's manner next day was much as usual, only rather quiet.

Chapter 33

It was the night of the great storm. Undern rattled and groaned; its fireless chimneys roared, and doors in unused passages banged so often that the house took on an air of being inhabited. It seemed as if all the people that had ever lived here had come back, ignoring in their mournful dignity of eternal death these momentary wraiths of life.

Hazel had always been afraid of the place, and had sat up until Reddin wanted to go to bed, so that she need not traverse the long passages alone. But to-night she was afraid of Reddin also--not just a little afraid, as she had always been, but full of unreasoning terror.

All things were confused in her mind, like the sounds that were in the wind; Reddin's face, distorted with rage, as he advanced on Sally with his arm raised; the howling of the baby; the sound of her bees burning--going off like apple-pips. A scene came back to her from the week before--it seemed years ago. They had gone into the harvest-field after a hot, yellow day haunted by the sound of cutting. Only a small square of orange wheat was left; the rest of the field lay in the pale disorder of destruction. The two great horses stood at one corner, darkly shining in the level light. The men who had been tying sheaves stood about, some women and children were coming over the stubble, and several dogs lay in the shadow. They all seemed to be waiting. They were, in fact, waiting for Reddin, who was always present at the dramatic finish of a field. Hazel knew what drama was to be enacted; knew what the knobbled sticks were for; knew who crouched in the tall, kindly wheat, palpitant, unaware that escape was impossible.

'Plenty o' conies, sir!' called one of the men, whose face was a good deal more brutal than that of his mongrel dog.

Hazel knew that the small square must be packed with rabbits, stark-eyed and still as death, who had, with a fated foolishness, drawn in from the outer portions of the field all day as the reaper went round.

'Jack,' she said, 'I hanna asked for a present ever.'

'No. You didn't want the bracelets, you silly girl.'

'I want one now.'

'You do, do you?'

'Ah! If you'll give it me, Jack, I'll do aught you want. What'd you like best in the 'orld?'

He considered. He was feeling very fit and almost too much alive.

'Hunter's Spinney over again--up to when we got so gloomy.'

Hazel never wanted to think of that night, nor see the Spinney again.

There had been many times since, in the grey-tinted room, that had been nearly as bad. But for evoking a shuddering, startled horror in her mind, nothing came up to that Sunday night.

The reaper was moving again. Soon the rabbits would begin to bolt.

'I'll do ought and go anywhere if you'll do this as I want, Jack.'

'Well?'

'Call 'em off! Leave the last bit till morning. Let 'em creep away in the dark and keep living a bit longer!'

'What nonsense!'

'Call 'em off, Jack! You can. You'm maister!'

'No.'

She sobbed. 'I be going, then.'

'No. You're to stay. You'll have to be cured of this damned silliness, and learn to be sensible.'

While she struggled to wrench herself free, two rabbits bolted, and hell broke loose. One would not have thought that the great calm evening under its stooping sky, the peaceful, omniscient trees, the grave, contented colours, could have tolerated such hideousness. The women and children shrieked with the best, and Hazel stood alone--the single representative, in a callous world, of God. Or was the world His representative, and she something alien, a dissentient voice to be silenced?