“I got up and dressed the next morning still uncertain as to whether I should or should not go over to Westmacotts’. I do not exactly know why I was uncertain, but perhaps my loneliness on the previous day had more to do with it than my self-offered pretext, that my acquaintance with Ruth had better be left where it was at our last meeting. Remember, I had not seen her since she stood distraught but resolute in the cowshed with the Hunter’s moon as a halo behind her head. What could one say to people in greeting when one’s last words had been full of dark mystery and of things which don’t come very often to the surface of life? In a word, I was afraid. Afraid of embarrassment, afraid of the comfort of her home, afraid of her. Afraid of my own self as a companion through lonely years afterwards. I dressed very slowly because I wanted to put off the inevitable moment of making up my mind. And after all it was Mrs. Pennistan who made it up for me, for such was her surprise when I mentioned catching a train which would certainly leave me no time for the visit, that I said I would go. “I realised then that I was glad. When I was a boy and couldn’t make up my mind whether I wanted to do a thing or not, I used to toss a coin, not necessarily abiding by the coin’s decision, but my own predominant feeling of relief or disappointment. I found the system invaluable. In this case Mrs. Pennistan had spun herself as a coin for me. “Westmacott, I knew, would be out. Would Ruth be out, too? and my problem thus resolved by, as it were, another spin of the coin? She was not out; she was in her kitchen rolling a white paste with a rolling-pin, the sleeves of her blue linen dress turned back, and as she rolled she sang to the baby which lay in a low cradle in the corner. The baby lay on its back waving a piece of red coral which it occasionally chewed. I stood for quite a long time in the doorway watching them, and then Ruth looked up and saw me. “I suppose I had remembered her blush as the most vivid thing about her, for I had waited there fully expecting her to look up and colour as she always did when surprised in any way, but instead of this she stood there gazing at me with the colour faded entirely from her face. She stood holding the rolling-pin, as white as the flour upon her hands and arms. The strong light of the window was upon her. Red geraniums were in the window. The strident voice of a canary broke our stillness. “‘Ruth,’ I said, ‘aren’t you glad to see me?’ “I went forward into the kitchen, standing close to her by the table, and light was all around us, light, and the song of the bird. Everything was light, white, and dazzling; a flood of light, and bright colours. Revelation, like an archangel, was in that room. “She asked,— “‘Where have you come from?’ “‘From your father’s house.’ “‘You’re living there?’ “‘Only for to-day.’ “‘And then you’re going...?’ “‘Away.’ “‘Away?’ “‘Yes.’ “‘For good?’ “‘To travel....’