Left alone, he walked up and down the room, puzzled and uneasy. According to his idea, he had done Hazel the greatest honour a man can pay to a woman. He could not see in what he had failed. He was irritated with his conscience for being troublesome. He had, as he put it, merely satisfied a need of his nature--a need simple and urgent as eating and drinking. He did not understand that in failing to find out whether it was also a need of Hazel's nature--and in nothing else at all--lay his unpardonable crime. That he had offended against the views of his Church did not worry him. For, like many churchmen, he had the happy gift of keeping profession and practice, dogma and deeds, in airtight compartments. How many of the most fervent churchmen are not, or have not been at some period of their lives, exactly like Reddin? 'Of course, I've been a bit of a beast in the past,' he thought. 'But that's done with. Besides, she doesn't know.' He reflected again. 'I suppose I was a bit rough, but she ought to have forgotten that by now. I do wish she wouldn't keep on so about the parson.' He ran upstairs. 'Sorry I was rough, Hazel,' he said shamefacedly. Hazel stood at the open window in a nightdress that she had found in one of the chests--a frail, yellowish thing with many frills of cobwebby lace made and worn by some dead woman on a forgotten bridal. It was symbolic of Hazel's whole life that she came in this way both to Undern and the Mountain--as bare of woman's regalia as a winter leaf is of substance. Hazel was speaking when he entered. He stood still, astonished and suspicious. 'Who are you talking to?' he asked. She turned. 'Him above,' she said. 'I was saying the prayer Ed'ard learnt me. I said it three times, it being Midsummer, and ghosses going to-and-agen and the death-pack about. He'll be bound to hearken to Ed'ard's prayer.' She looked small and pitiful standing in the flickering candlelight. She turned again to the window, and Reddin went downstairs, quite overwhelmed and abashed.