Mavis soon descended from the general to the particular. Her mind continually dwelt on every incident of her brief acquaintance with Windebank: she found that it was as much as she could do to justify the exigent scruples which had made her repel the man's approaches. One day, the scales fell from her eyes. She had deserted the canal and was sitting in a field, some two miles from the town, where the few trees it contained were disposed as if they were continually setting to partners, in some arboreous quadrille. The surrounding fields were tipped at all angles, as if in petulant discontent of one-time flatness. With an effort she could discern, Jill's tail wagging delightedly from a hole in a ditch, where she was hunting a rabbit. The voice, the sights, the sounds of nature, all served to obliterate the effect of life, as she had, hitherto, regarded it, upon her processes of thought. Archie Windebank's wealth, social position and career were as nought to her; he appealed to her only as a man, and her conceivable relationship to him was but as female to male. All other considerations, which she had before believed of importance, now seemed trivial and inept. She wondered how she could have been blinded for so long. She bitterly reproached herself for her high-flown scruples, which now savoured of unwholesome affectation; but for these, she might not only have been a happy wife, but she might, also, have proved the means of conferring happiness upon another, and he a dearly loved one. She called to Jill and sorrowfully went home. Three weeks later was Whit Monday, a day which, being a holiday, she was able to devote to her own uses. She had planned to walk to the village of Preen, an ancient hamlet set upon a hill that overlooked Salisbury Plain, which was distant some five miles from Melkbridge; but, at the last moment, her distress of mind was such that she abandoned the excursion. Lethargy had succeeded to her disturbed thoughts--lethargy that made her look on life through grey spectacles. Instead of setting out for Preen, she walked aimlessly about the town, accompanied by Jill. Presently she went up Church Walk, at the top of which she saw that the church door was open. She had a fancy for walking by the grave-stones, so Mavis tied Jill up to the gate of the churchyard with the lead which she usually carried.