For the first time she felt herself too young for her destiny. "I am only nineteen," she cried silently. Tears might have disgraced her but that the child moved in her as if it had looked out at the frightening figures through her eyes, and she suddenly hated Harry for leaving her and his son unprotected from such brutes as people seemed to be, and was vivified by the hatred. She made to walk past the boys back towards Yaverland's End, but as she moved they sent up shrill wordless calls to their fellows who were still in the fields, which were immediately answered. She realised that any minute the woods would be full of lads whom the sight of her would change to obscene creatures, and that being consolidated in this undisturbed place they would say and do things that would hurt her so much that they would hurt her child. There was nothing for it but to leave the cover of the wood and cross the waste space and walk down Roothing High Street and go back to Yaverland's End by the lane. Her mood of forgiving love for the village, which the cricket-ball had interrupted, had been so real that she felt as if a pact had been established between it and her, and she was quite sure that she would be safe from the boys there. If they were tiresome and followed her, no doubt somebody like Mrs. Hobbs, who kept the general stores, would take her in and let her rest till it was dark, and then see her home. She turned round and walked out of the wood, and because she could not, in her heavy-footed state, trample through the undergrowth, she had to follow the path that led her to within a yard or two of George Postgate. She could see from the workings of his large face that he was forming some plan of action. And sure enough, when she passed him, he cried out "Dirty Marion!" and twitched the sun-bonnet from her head. The sudden movement made her start violently, for though she had not known what fear was until she conceived, she now knew a panic-terror at anything that threatened her body. That made the boys shout with laughter and call to their friends to hurry up and see the fun.