She had been trying to tell Aunt Adeline all about it, but you could see she wasn't interested. She kept on saying "Yes" and "Oh" and "Really"? in the wrong places. She never could listen to you for long together, and this afternoon she was evidently thinking of something else, perhaps of John Severn, who had been home on leave and gone again without coming to the Fieldings. "'I've been to my sweetheart, mother, make my bed soon, For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down...'" Mournful, and beautiful, Colin's song came through the windows, and Anne thought of Jerrold who was not there. He was staying in Yorkshire with some friends of his, the Durhams. He would be back to-morrow. He would have got away from the Durhams. ..."'make my bed soon...'" To-morrow. To-morrow. "Who are the Durhams, Auntie?" "He's Sir Charles Durham. Something important in the Punjaub. Some high government official. He'll be useful to Jerrold if he gets a job out there. They're going back in October. I suppose I shall have to ask. Maisie Durham before they sail." Maisie Durham. Maisie Durham. But to-morrow he would have got away. "'What will you leave your lover, Rendal, my son? What will you leave your lover, my pretty one? A rope to hang her, mother, A rope to hang her, mother, make my bed soon, For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down.'" "Sing something cheerful, Colin, for Goodness sake," said his mother. But Colin sang it again. "'A rope to hang her'" "Bless him, you'd think he'd known all the wicked women that ever were. My little Col-Col." "You like him the best, don't you?" "No. Indeed I do not. I like my laughing boy best. You wouldn't catch Jerry singing a dismal song like that." "Darling, you used to say Colin was your favourite." "No, my dear. Never. Never. It was always Jerrold. Ever since he was born. He never cried when he was a baby. Colin was always crying." "Poor Col-Col." "There you are. Nobody'll ever say, 'Poor Jerrold'. I like happy people, Anne. In this tiresome world it's people's duty to be happy." "If it was, would they be? Don't look at me as if I wasn't." "I wasn't thinking of you, ducky... You might tell Pinkney to take _all_ those tea-things off the terrace and put them _back_ into the lounge." ii The beech-trees stood in a half ring at the top of the highest field. Jerrold had come back. He and Anne sat in the bay of the beeches, looking out over the hills. Curve after curve of many-coloured hills, rolling together, flung off from each other, an endless undulation. Rounded heads carrying a clump of trees like a comb; long steep groins packed with tree-tops; raking necks hog-maned with stiff plantations. Slopes that spread out fan-wise, opened wide wings. An immense stretching and flattening of arcs up to the straight blue wall on the horizon. A band of trees stood up there like a hedge.