"Nothing, I--I'm going upstairs. Let me pass, please." "Maybe I want a kiss." "Oh, no, no!" she cried, trying to edge between him and the wall. "Why not?" He put his hands on her shoulders, she felt the warmth and heaviness of them, and was more frightened than ever because she liked it. "Maybe I want more than a kiss." She was leaning against the wall, if he had released her she could not have run away. She was like a rabbit, paralysed with fear. He bent towards her and his lips closed on hers. She nearly fainted, but she did not struggle or try to scream. It seemed years that they stood linked by that unwilling kiss. At last he raised his head. "Will you marry me, Naomi?" "No---- Oh, no!" "Why?" "No--no--I can't--I won't!" Strength came to her suddenly; it was like awaking from a nightmare. She thrust him from her, slipped past, and ran out of the room. The next morning she returned to Rye. But she could not stay there. Her heart was all restlessness and dissatisfaction. Soon Mrs. Backfield announced that she was coming back. "I reckoned she would," said Reuben. She arrived in the swale. A tender grey mist was in the air, smeething Boarzell, mingling with the smoke of Odiam chimneys, that curled out wood-scented into the dark. As Naomi climbed from the carrier's cart which had brought her, she smelled the daffodils each side of the garden path. The evening was full of pale perfumes, of ghostly yellows, massing faintly amidst the grey. Reuben stood in the doorway and watched her come up the path, herself dim and ghostly, like the twilight and the flowers. When she was close he held out his arms to her, and she fell on his breast. § 14. From thenceforward there was no looking back. Preparations for the wedding began at once. Old Gasson was delighted, and dowered his girl generously. As for Naomi, she gave herself up to the joys of bride-elect. Her position as Reuben's betrothed was much more important than as Harry's. It was more definite, more exalted, the ultimate marriage loomed more largely and more closely in it. She and Reuben were not so much sweethearts as husband and wife to be. Their present semi-attached state scarcely counted, it was just an unavoidable interval of preparation for a more definite relationship. She was glad in a way that everything was so different, glad that Reuben's love-making was so utterly unlike Harry's. Otherwise she could never have plunged herself so deep into forgetfulness. She was quite without regrets--she could never have imagined she could be so free of them. She lived for the present, and for the future which was not her own. She was at rest. No longer the pursuing feet came after her, making her life a nightmare of long flights--she was safe in her captor's grasp, borne homeward on his shoulder.