Francis followed her into the little low oak-beamed room, spick and span and clean as a new pin. There was a picture of Queen Victoria on the walls, five texts, and a grocer's almanac, horribly reproducing in oleographic colour a pre-Raphaelite picture of Christ knocking at a door. The woman, Mrs. Entwistle, brewed a pot of tea and chattered: "She be that well, tha'd think she were going to make no more fuss than a beast. Eeh! The way t' bloom 'ave coom to her cheeks and 't light to 'er eyes ye'd say a woman was all t' better for carryin'. . . ." Francis began to take the same delight in the enormous woman that had come to him from the sights of his walk. She was so sane and comfortable. "Eeh," she said, "It was a good thing to get 'er away from 'er mother. I never could do wi' them stringy little women. A 'ard time? 'Course she's 'ad a 'ard time. So's everybody, but you don't want the world to go grizzlin about it." Annie came in. She was very pretty, with a new soft pride in her eyes. She was very big. She took Francis's hand and clung to it, and with eyes and voice together she said: "Thank you." "Glad to see you, my dear," said he. "Glad to see you looking so well." She sat down. They had tea, and when they had done Francis intimated that he wished to speak to Annie alone. Mrs. Entwistle took down a yoke from the wall and went off to fetch water from the well. Francis hugged his knee and read several times over a text which ran: "Beloved now are we, the sons of God." It was so illuminated that it was difficult to read: _we_ looked like _me_, and _sons_ like _guns_. Then he asked if he might smoke. "Surely," said Annie. Francis lit his pipe and the tobacco tasted very good. "You have been happy here," he said. "Oh, yes. Very happy." "I've brought you your ten shillings." "Thank you." He gave her the coin and she put it in a little purse. Francis found himself at a standstill. He forced himself to speak. He was alarmed at the quiescence of his conscience under the influence of Mrs. Entwistle and the garden and the radiant thankfulness in Annie's face. Her gratitude to him made it very difficult for him to perform what he conceived to be his duty. A humorous gleam shot through his brain, and he began to think himself a little absurd; but he pricked his conscience and it stifled the gleam. He looked very serious as he said: "I suppose--I hope you realise that you have no right to be happy. You are bringing a child into the world in sin . . ." He could not go on. He saw that he had hurt the girl to the quick. "I'm sorry," he said hurriedly. "It is very difficult. I only wanted to be sure that you realised, that you knew, that--that . . ." With bowed head and with her hands in her lap, Annie said in a low voice: