She felt no anger to-day, no bitter sense of humiliation, but her heart ached for Roger. Something in her needed him, needed him. There was no romance now as she had once known it, no field of lilies under a new moon. Her love for Roger had gone deeper, where all love must go, if it is to survive its rainbow youth. She had thought she had found an abiding city in Roger's heart. But he had let her leave him without a word after her confession. He had not called her back. He had not written to her since. "I am not good enough for him," said Annette to herself. "That is the truth. He and Janey are too far above me." She longed for a moment that the position might have been reversed, that it might have been she who was too good for Roger--only it was unthinkable. But if _he_ had been under some cloud, then she knew that they would not have had to part. She had reached the stile where the water meadows begin, and instinctively she stood still and looked at her little world once more, and thankfulness flooded her heart. After all, Roger had come in for his inheritance, for this place which he loved so stubbornly. She was not what he thought, but if she had been, if she had never had her mad moment, if she had never gone to Fontainebleau, it was almost certain Dick would never have made his will. She had at any rate done that for Roger. Out of evil good had come--if not to her, to him. She crossed the stile, where the river bent away from the path, and then came back to it, slow and peaceful once more, whispering amid its reeds, the flurry of the mill-race all forgotten. Would she one day--when she was very old--would she also forget? Across the empty field thin smoke wreaths came drifting. Here too they had been burning the weeds. At her feet, at the water's edge, blue eyes of forget-me-not peered suddenly at her. It had no right to be in flower now. She stooped over the low bank, holding by a twisted willow branch, and reached it and put it in her bosom. And as she looked at it, it seemed to Annette that in some forgotten past she had wandered in a great peace by a stream such as this, a kind understanding stream, and she had gathered a spray of forget-me-not such as this, and had put it in her bosom, and she had met beside the stream one that loved her: and all had been well, exceeding well. A great peace enfolded her, as a mother enfolds her new-born babe. She was wrapt away from pain. Along the narrow path by the water's edge Roger was coming: now dimly seen through the curling smoke, now visible in the sunshine. Annette felt no surprise at seeing him. She had not heard of his return, but she knew now that she had been waiting for him. He came up to her and then stopped. Neither held out a hand, as they looked gravely at each other. Then he explained something about having missed the last train from Ipswich, and how he had slept there, and had come out to Riebenbridge by the first train this morning.