His work went but slowly on that day--and in the days that followed. On the next Friday he went over to Rochester, and in the dusk of the evening he walked along the road, about a mile from "The Yews," and then, going slowly, he cast handfuls of something dark from his hand, and kicked the white dust over it as it lay. "I feel like the enemy sowing tares," said he. Then he went home, full of anxious anticipation. The next day was hot and bright. He took his armchair into the nightmare of a verandah, and sat there reading; only above the top of the book his eyes could follow the curve of the white road. This made it more difficult to follow the text. Presently the bicyclists began to go past, by ones and twos and threes; but a certain percentage was wheeling its machines--others stopped within sight to blow up their tyres. One man sat down under the hedge thirty yards away, and took his machine to pieces; presently he strolled up and asked for water. Brent gave it, in a tin basin, grudgingly, and without opening the gate. "I overdid it," he said, "a quarter of a pound would have been enough; yet I don't know--perhaps it's well to be on the safe side. Yet three pounds was perhaps excessive." Late in the afternoon a pink figure wheeling a bicycle came slowly down the road. He sat still, and tried to read. In a moment he should hear the click of the gate: then he would spring up and be very much astonished. But the gate did not click, and when next he raised his eyes the pink blouse had gone by, and was almost past the end of the five acres. Then he did spring up--and ran. "Miss Redmayne, can't I help you? What is it? Have you had a spill?" he said as he overtook her. "Puncture," said she laconically. "You're very unfortunate. Mayn't I help you to mend it?" "I'll mend it as soon as I get to a shady place." "Come into the wilderness. See--here's the side gate. I'll fetch some water in a moment." She looked at him doubtfully, and then consented. She refused tea, but she stayed and talked till long after the bicycle was mended. On the following Saturday he walked along the road, and back, and along, and again the place was alive with angry cyclists dealing, each after his fashion, with a punctured tyre. He came upon Miss Redmayne sitting by the ditch mending hers. That was the time when he sat on the roadside and told her all about himself--reserving only those points where his life had touched Camilla's. The week after he walked the road again, and this time he overtook Miss Redmayne, who was resolutely wheeling her bicycle back in the way by which she had come. "Let me wheel it for you," he said. "Whither bound?" "I'm going back to Rochester," she said. "I generally ride over to see my aunts at Felsenden on Saturdays, but I fear I must give it up, or go by train; this road isn't safe." "Not safe?" he said with an agitation which could not escape her notice.