Kit remembered Bob when they were halfway to the house, and turned to look for him, thinking him at their heels. But the track behind them was empty and the gate shut, and there was no more sign of Bob and his trap than if they had never been. The old man wanted to know why he had gone away, and Thomas looked shy at the question, and seemed vexed. “Nay, I doubt he’s a bit put out about summat, is Bob. Happen he’s not best suited at you coming to us.... Any road, he wasn’t for coming up to the house, whatever I said. He said he’d be stopping a while at Low Moss End, and likely getting his tea along wi’ ’em an’ all....” Kit remained standing still in the middle of the field, looking rather forlornly down the track. “Happen he’d a message or summat for ’em,” he observed. “They’re cousins o’ Marget’s, now I come to think on.” There was a lost sound in his voice, as if he had somehow been betrayed. “I never thought as he wouldn’t be coming up.” Thomas had come to a stand, too, looking crestfallen and cast down. He had never imagined for a moment that his father would want Bob. One would have thought he had had enough of that family and to spare! “Is there owt you wanted to tell him?” he ventured at last. “I could happen slip down and fetch him as soon as I’ve had my tea.” But before he had stopped speaking Kit had swung round, shaking his head and making for the house. Now he seemed to be running away from Bob, thrusting him into the distance that lay behind. He wondered why he had asked for his elder son, and why he had felt deserted when he saw the empty field. Bob was the last connecting link with what he had left, and he couldn’t be really free until Bob had gone. He ought to have felt exultant instead of afraid, but there was no trusting his wretched nerves to-night. He felt ashamed of himself again ... he was always feeling ashamed. He was the sort that would try to escape on the threshold of Paradise itself.... He breathed more easily when they reached the garden gate, because it did not seem possible that he could turn back now, and he saw with relief that the gate was still the same. It was painted, indeed, in the new shade of blue, but that did not prevent it from being the same gate underneath. He knew it to be the same by the missing spoke, which must have been missing for over twenty years. Thomas apologised for the spoke, but he paid no heed; he was so busy gloating over the fact that it wasn’t there.