But she could not fear for long. She had pushed them back, averting her head, into the shadows, and there they had taken up their abode. They would not leave her again. Not even in the midst of joy,--if joy should ever visit,--would they leave her, any more than the shadows were ever completely absent even in the midst of sunshine on the Downs. She was grateful to them for the way they had come, stealing in upon her, silent and gradual, not in a sudden irruption that would have broken her. But now that she no longer feared them, no longer feared the learning that solitude might bring, it was for solitude that she craved, and solitude, she found, was the thing that she might not have. Calladine, who was so content in her company, expected that she should be equally content in his. When she went out, he went with her; when he was not inclined to go out, he begged that she would remain at home. “It is a rough day, Clare; let us stay happily by the fire.” Or he would consent to pace the garden, sheltered now by a little wall, and together they would look at the bare winter beds, and he would talk cheerfully of the flowers that would blow there in the spring. She renounced the Downs. Since she might not wander there alone, she restricted herself to the house and the square of garden, or to the green track that led to King’s Avon when she went to see her father. Even on this expedition Calladine accompanied her. He did not notice that she walked with her eyes bent upon the ground, never allowing them to lift and stray over the rolling country; or if he noticed he gave no sign. All the time he talked of minor things, and to his talk she made adequate response. Arrived at King’s Avon she would quicken her steps and pass rapidly down the village street, glancing about her only sufficiently to acknowledge the greetings of her humble acquaintances, and only when safe within the Manor House gates would she relax a little, and show herself gentle and affectionate towards her father, who, absent as ever, would presently forget that she was married and would invite Calladine to remain to dinner, “Clare and I, my dear friend, may so rarely welcome a visitor.” Through her laughter she looked at him wistfully; he was dear and familiar, his old beehive hat as wide and as shabby as ever, his spectacles still on his nose and his mild blue eyes looking out through them. She wondered how he got on without her, but Martha told her he did not seem to notice her absence much; only once, she had found him in Miss Clare’s old bedroom, wandering round, and touching everything in a gently puzzled way. Clare was glad that he should continue his busy, happy existence. Martha she could trust, “To be sure, Miss Clare, I look after him as though he was your own baby. It’s all I can do, not to powder him after his bath.” But she sometimes fancied that his eyes followed her a little sorrowfully down the avenue when she went away, as he stood watching