If she had known that Henrietta was to suffer, she would have subdued her niceness, for if Francis had been in physical possession of her body, she would have had no difficulty in possessing his mind. Holding nothing back, she could also have held him securely. She did not want him, but Henrietta would have been saved. But then Rose had not known: how could she? And Henrietta might be saved yet, she must be saved. The obvious method was to lay siege to the facile heart of Francis, but there was no time for that. Rose was not deceived by Henrietta’s enigmatic words. They were tired of meeting stealthily, she had said. What did that mean? Her head grew hotter. She had to force herself into calm, and the old man at the toll-house on the bridge received her visual greeting as she passed, but, as she went slowly to the stables, there was added to her anxiety the thrilling knowledge that at last, and for the first time, she was going to take definite action. Her whole life had been a long and dull preparation for this day. She began to take a pleasure in her excitement: she had something to do; she was delivered from the monotony of thought. On her way from the stables she met Charles Batty going home for his midday meal, and she stopped him. “Charles!” she said. She presented to his appreciative eyes a very elegant figure in the habit looped up to show her high slim boots, with her thick plait of hair under the hard hat, her complexion defying the whiteness of her stock; while to her he appeared with something of the aspect of an angel in a long top coat and a hat at the back of his head. “Charles,” she said again, tapping her boot with her whip, “I’m in trouble. Would you mind walking home by the hill? I want you to help me, but I can’t tell you how. Not yet.” He walked beside her without speaking and they came to the place where he had stood with Henrietta and she had flouted him; whither she had wandered on her first day in Radstowe, that high point overlooking the gorge, the rocks, the trees, the river; that scene of which not Charles, nor Rose, nor Henrietta could ever tire. “Not, yet,” she repeated. “Will you meet me this afternoon?” “Look here,” he remonstrated, “if Henrietta found out—” She had not time to smile. “It’s for her sake.” “I’ll do anything,” he said. “Then will you meet me this afternoon at five o’clock? Not here. I may not be able to get so far. Where can we meet?” “Well, there’s the post-office. Can’t mistake that.”