It was roaring day without a dew-drop left in the open when she woke. She lay a moment confused. Vague thrills ran like ants up and down her body and soul, and her stupor thinned and vanished like the night mists two hours before. She had sunk through the yielding green stuff and her body had pressed so heavily against the damp, stony earth that she felt as if she were clamped to it. Her first movement set her shivering with pain and cold. Yet her linen frock was bone dry where the sunshine had beaten down on it, shiny and hot to the touch. Fern-flies rose buzzing from it as she moved stiffly in her place. The footsteps—she realized that the sound of footsteps had awakened her—drew nearer. A labourer going to work? She pulled a fan of bracken across her face. Her frock was green and the brishwood high: it would be mere ill-luck if she were seen. When he had passed she would get up and go home, out of the glare. One could not think in the glare, and she had come out to think ... to think about Justin ... to plan—what was the plan?... She put her cold hand to her head, and then dropped it again, stiffening where she lay. She knew that step, that whistle. Yet what should Justin do here? Unless—unless—could he, too, have had his sleepless night?... He had stopped a dozen yards away from her. Through the bracken stalks she could see his arrested pose, his lifted head. He was shading his eyes with his hand, listening and staring about him. With the instant, all-adapting egoism of the lover, she arrived at the only explanation. Something had happened.... Some word of hers had taken root, had flowered in the night.... He wanted her.... He had come to find her.... Things were going to be all right.... Why not? Why not?... In another moment she would have been on her feet, calling to him: “I’m here. I’ll get it for you. What is it you want?” But before she could scramble to her feet he had nodded to himself, and walked on again, and she watched him climb the gate and disappear among the trees. What a fool she was.... He had been listening to a bird in the wood.... He was out nesting.... He had said only yesterday that he wanted more blackcap eggs.... She jerked herself to her knees and listened. She could hear him moving in the undergrowth and the serene outpouring change to short, sharp cheepings, to the agonized danger note. He was in luck.... “Krek! Krek! Krek-krek!” She wished he wouldn’t. It was beastly.... With sudden decision she rose to her feet and moved noiselessly and hurriedly down the path. She would get away while she could.... He might be strolling back at any moment with the warm eggs in his hand.... There would be the blow-pipe and the mess of yolk to follow.... And he would go home at last looking perfectly satisfied.... Why not? Didn’t he care more for his wretched eggs than for anything on God’s earth? Of course! And that was why Coral had said——