Her eyes were not on him, but on the lattice. She looked across the great field, with its uplands and its belt of oaks. She had seen it in so many aspects--half shorn; plowed, the wet furrows shining like glass; seen it smoothly iced with January snow; watched the green needle-points of young grain. That outlook, that deep bay window, had known the tearing of her heart. She looked. The ripeness of harvest was suggested. There were the long stretches of gray-green grain, soon to be golden, soon to rustle with the dry, hot breeze of August. She saw the tossed-up lavish boughs of wild roses wreathing above the hedge-rows, and saw the long grass on the banks, tropical in its growth, and going rapidly to seed. She couldn’t stay here and watch the changes of the season for years--year after year and then death--without word of him. “I couldn’t bear it,” she repeated. “You wouldn’t be fool enough to throw Jethro over? You wouldn’t come with me to London and take pot luck--a knight’s wife some day, perhaps, or only the starving wife of--a number. I mean to be careful--but failure’s on the cards. Even men like Milligan come a cropper now and then. I’ve heard shaky stories about him. He doesn’t know when to stop.” His eyes were shining. Something of the old passion was stamping itself anew on his face. She was looking lovely--the daredevil expression of perfect abandonment and sacrifice strong on her mouth, on her quickly-breathing body, on the very hands which shook in the lap of her white gown. “You wouldn’t come?” he said, under his breath. She gave a quick sigh, a last sharp glance at the gray, gently-moving uplands and the wreaths of dog-roses. “I would go with you--anywhere. I would have gone with you to the prison, been a number, a thing less than an animal behind the prison wall--but they wouldn’t let me.” He put his mouth to hers. “Dear little woman! In India you’d go to the Suttee. Then it is settled. Tackle Jethro to-night.” CHAPTER XI. SHE waited until supper was over, and then she asked Jethro for half an hour alone in the little room looking due north, where he kept his papers, his boots, his agricultural catalogues, stray packets of seeds, and so on.