“Ay, I’m back,” she said in a curious tone, and looked away from him and about her. “Back!”--and her glance went to the privet hedge beyond the window.... He waited a moment, staring at her uncertainly and rather uncomfortably, and then slipped quietly from the room. Half-way down the stairs, he heard her say “Back!” again, and hesitated in his step as if meaning to return to her; only to hurry on afterwards more rapidly than ever. III As he entered the kitchen he was met by the letter with the now familiar shock, but this time he did not attempt to evade it. On the contrary, he went deliberately across to it, and stood by the table, looking at it. A glance at the clock had shown him that he was earlier than he had imagined, and he was in no mood to meet his staff before he was obliged. That whistling first-comer would be Len Machell, a skilled gardener and his right-hand man. Len was always early, and he had always liked him for it; but he was not so sure that he liked him for it, this morning. Deep down in his mind lurked an uncomfortable suspicion that Len had a reason for coming early to-day.... The letter, addressed in his small but flowing handwriting, was directed to his employer at the Hall. He was always slightly ashamed of his pale, delicate script, especially when he happened to see it beside his wife’s black and sturdy hand. The scant imprint of the one seemed almost a purposed reproach to the brave intensity of the other. It was true that Mattie, in helping to draft the letter, had used so much of the ink, writing and re-writing, and underlining and exclaiming, that there had been very little of it left by the time he came to it; but of course that was no excuse. _She_ would have got her effect, he knew, even with a dried-up bottle and a broken nib!... He felt unhappily that his effort looked even feebler this morning than it had done last night, as if it had faded for lack of volition on the part of the writer. Yet, after all, he said to himself, straightening himself as he stood, it was his weak pen which had altered their destinies. Mattie’s handwriting, superior though it was, could not in this case have had the weight of his. The ink that was left had been more than sufficient for the few, colourless words in which, after forty years’ service, he had sent in his notice. It had seemed so impossible a thing before it was done, and, now that it _was_ done, it seemed so easy. Simple and easy, as death seemed, when you saw it close.... But it was wrong of him to keep on thinking of the change that was coming in terms of trouble or death. Once already that morning he had had to remind himself that what it really stood for was new life.