Produced by Al Haines ONE WOMAN: Being the Second Part of a Romance of Sussex BY ALFRED OLLIVANT Après a'voir souffert il faut souffrir encore LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE, 40, MUSEUM STREET, W.C.1 First published in 1921 BY THE SAME AUTHOR DANNY OWD BOB BOY WOODBURN THE GENTLEMAN THE ROYAL ROAD THE BROWN MARE THE NEXT STEP THE TAMING OF JOHN BLUNT TWO MEN TO MY COUNTRY CONTENTS THE CARRIER'S CART PART I DEEPENING DUSK I THE HOSTEL II COW GAP III THE WATCHMAN ON THE HEAD IV ALF V THE CREEPING DEATH VI THE COLONEL LEARNS A SECRET VII THE MAN FROM THE NORTH VIII THE CHERUB IX THE SHADOW OF ROYAL X BOBS XI THE RUSSET-COATED CAPTAIN XII RUTH WAKES XIII NIGHTMARE XIV SHADOWS XV THE LANDLORD XVI THE GRANDMOTHER XVII THE CHALLENGE XVIII A SKIRMISH XIX PITCHED BATTLE XX THE VANQUISHED XXI THUNDER PART II TROUBLED DAWN XXII THE BETRAYAL XXIII THE COLONEL FACES DEFEAT XXIV THE PILGRIMS XXV RED IN THE MORNING XXVI THE AVALANCHE MOVES XXVII THE GROWING ROAR XXVIII OLD TOWN XXIX FOLLOW YOUR LEADER XXX THE END OF THE WORLD XXXI THE COLONEL XXXII THE DAY OF JUDGMENT XXXIII BEAU-NEZ XXXIV THE STATION XXXV IN THE EVENING XXXVI RUTH FACES THE STORM XXXVII MRS. LEWKNOR XXXVIII SUSPENSE XXXIX THE VALLEY OF DECISION XL VICTORY AND REVENGE THE COMFORTER THE CARRIER'S CART An old-fashioned carrier's cart, such as you may still meet on the roads of Sussex, tilted, one-horsed, and moving at the leisurely pace of a bye-gone age, turned East at the Turnpike, and made slowly along the Lewes-Beachbourne road under the northern scarp of the Downs one evening of autumn in 1908. In it, at the back of the driver, were a young man and a young woman, the only passengers, ensconced among hen-coops, flitches of bacon, and baskets of greens. They sat hand-in-hand. The woman was a noble creature, about her the majestic tranquillity of a great three-decker that comes to rest in sunset waters after its Trafalgar. The man, but for a certain wistfulness about his eyes which betokened undue sensibility, was not remarkable. Till he spoke you would have said he was a gentleman--that is to say if your eyes confined their scrutiny to his face and refused to see his hands, his boots, his clothes. When he spoke you would have recognised at once that he was Sussex of the soil as, surely, was the woman beside him; though the speech of both was faintly marred with the all-pervading cockney accent of those who have passed beyond the village-green into the larger world of the England of to-day.