"And his three acres and a cow!" Clare watched her contemptuously. It did not seem worth while to keep her dignity with Elsbeth. She felt that it would be a relief to lose her temper completely, to override this opponent by sheer, crude invective. She let herself go. "What a fool you are! Do you flatter yourself that you understand Alwynne? Go back to your Coelebs and tell him from Alwynne--I tell you I speak for Alwynne--that he's wasting his time. Let him take his goods to another market: Alwynne won't buy. I've other plans for her--she has other plans for yourself. She doesn't want a husband. She doesn't want a home. She doesn't want children. She wants me--and all I stand for. She wants to use her talents--and she shall--through me. She wants success--she shall have it--through me. She wants friendship--can't I give it? Affection? Haven't I given it? What more can she want? A home? I'm well off. A brat to play with? Let her adopt one, and I'll house it. I'll give her anything she wants. What more can your man offer? But I won't let her go. I tell you, we suffice each other. Thank God, there are some women who can do without marriage--marriage--marriage!" Elsbeth, as if she heard nothing, tugged at the catch. The door swung open, and she stepped quietly into the sunny passage. Then she turned to Clare, a grey, angry shadow in the dusk of the hall. "Poor Clare!" she said. "Are the grapes very sour?" She pulled-to the door behind her. * * * * * Later in the evening, as she sat, flushed, tremulous, utterly joyful over Roger's telegram, she considered the manner of her exit and was shocked at herself. "I don't know what possessed me," said Elsbeth apologetically. "And if I had only known. It was unladylike--it was unwomanly--it was unchristian." She shook her head at her mild self in the glass. "But she made me so angry! If I'd only known that this was coming!" She fingered the pink envelope. "She'll think I knew. She'll always think I knew. And then to say what I did? It was unpardonable. "But I was right, all the same," cried Elsbeth incorrigibly; "and I don't care. I'm glad I said it--I'm glad--I'm glad!" CHAPTER XLVII The sun slid over the edge of the sweating earth. Its red-hot plunge into the sea behind the hills was almost audible. The black cloud, fuming up from its setting-place, was as the steam of the collision. In great clots and coils it rolled upwards, spreading as it thinned, till it was a pall of vapour that sheeted all the lemon-coloured sky. Suddenly a cold wind sprang up, raced down the silent heavens, and, by way of Eastern Europe and the North Sea and the straight Roman road that drives down England, tore along the Utterbridge byways, and into the open window of Clare Hartill's parlour. A touch of its cold lips on her hair, and brow, and breast, and it was out again, driving the dust before it.