Thomas had been busy redding himself up, and turned towards her a tanned but shining face. He was still in his working clothes, but he had shaved, and slipped his jacket over his rolled-up sleeves. There was health in the clean lines of his jaw and the warm colours of his skin, and kindness and honesty in his tranquil eyes. Only his mouth, firmly-cut and set, showed that he could be obstinate if driven too far. This was a man who saw one road at a time, and when once he was set on it could not turn aside. Agnes had known that face when it was dogged and harsh, heard passion and bitterness in the slow, deep voice, seen tortured and angry strength in the broad, slow form. But that was long ago, of course, before she had come to her senses and seen clear. To-night, Thomas’s face shone as much with pleasure as with soap. Everything was an occasion for his smile, the slowly-broadening smile which thought before it came. He smiled as he turned instinctively towards the stair. He had not yet ceased to watch for her coming in. Often and often he had seen her in his mind before she was really there in front of his eyes. Now, as he watched, he saw her soft, blue gown paint itself clear on the dusk beyond the door. The sun was in the kitchen, too, but in far greater power, because of the wider windows and the open porch, that was like some arching cave with a golden tide at the flood. Almost everything in the kitchen was new, and everything was scrubbed and polished as it had been upstairs. The dresser was as white as when the timber first yielded to the saw. The plates in the pot-rail were so many circular mirrors in the sun. And everything spoke of new housekeeping and newly-wedded pride. The legs of the table were shapely and smooth, unworn by the marks of large or little boots, unscarred by the clawings of generations of cats. There was an arm-chair to the side of the flashing fender and the modern range, an expensive-looking chair, with its castors shining and whole, its covers unfaded and its padding plump. The grandfather’s clock had not yet settled to his corner place. Behind the warming-pan with its flat gold face, there was never a mark on the pale-coloured wall.