Annette kneeling by the lake, crying silently, was so absorbed in tenderly clearing the dead leaves from the work of art, and in setting the cow on its legs again, that she did not hear a step on the path behind her. Roger had come back and was watching her. When she discovered the two lambs sitting facing each other, she seized them up, and kissed them, sobbing violently. Something in Annette's action vaguely repelled him as he watched her. It was what he would have defined as "French." And though he had swallowed down the French father, he hated all symptoms of him in Annette. It was alien to him to kiss little china lambs. Janey would never have done that. And Janey was the test, the touchstone of all that was becoming in woman. And then all in a moment the tiny wave of repulsion was submerged in the strong current of his whole being towards her. It was as if some dormant generous emotion had been roused and angered by his petty pin-prick opposition to put out its whole strength and brush it away. "Don't cry," said Roger gruffly. But there were tears in his small round eyes as well as in hers. "Oh, Roger," said Annette, speaking to him for the first time by his Christian name, "have you seen it, the fishes and the ducks, and the pigsty, and the little lambs and everything?" Roger nodded. He had watched that property in course of construction. He might have added that he had provided most of the animals for it. But if he had added that, he would not have been Roger. "And she's burnt everything in the nursery," continued Annette, rising and going to him, the tears running down her face. "The toys and everything. And she's torn down the little pictures from the wall and broken them and thrown them on the fire. And I think she only left the garden because--poor thing--because she forgot it." Roger did not answer. He took her in his arms, and said with gruff tenderness, as if to a child, "Don't cry." She leaned against him, and let his arms fold her to him. And as they stood together in silence their hearts went out to each other, and awe fell upon them. All about them seemed to shake, the silvered firs, the pale sunshine, the melancholy house, the solid earth beneath their feet. "You will marry me, won't you, Annette?" he said hoarsely. Remembrance rushed back upon her. She drew away from him, and looked earnestly at him with tear-dimmed, wistful eyes. The poor woman who had lived here, who had worn the little path on which they were standing, had loved Dick, but he had not married her. She herself, for one brief hour, had loved some one, but he had had no thought of marrying her. Was Roger, after all, like other men? Would he also cast her aside when he knew all, weigh her in the balance, and find her not good enough to be his wife? There was a loud knocking at the door, and the bell pealed. It echoed through the empty house.