He had been right about Machell, he discovered later.... He discovered it after breakfast,--a breakfast which seemed to him more like a meal in a railway station than anything else. Beyond removing a few things from the mantelpiece, and routing a few other things out of a cupboard, Mattie had not actually begun her preparations for packing, but she managed to give the impression, nevertheless. The ebb and flow of her talk, rising and falling as she passed between kitchen and larder, came to him like the signals of approaching or departing trains.... Finishing his meal more hurriedly than usual, he went out to find Len again standing staring at the cottage. This time, however, Machell made no attempt at concealment. Instead, he came forward to meet his chief awkwardly but eagerly. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he began hastily, as if unable to contain himself any longer, “but there’s something I’d like to ask you. It’s all over the place you’re giving up your job, and I thought happen you’d put in a word for me if I was to apply for it.” For a moment or two after he had spoken Kirkby did not know how to answer. He should have been prepared for the shock, he knew, but the fact remained that he was not prepared for it. Absurd as it seemed, it had not yet occurred to him that this sort of thing would follow naturally upon his “notice.” It would have come to him, of course, with the actual sending of the letter, but so far he had not progressed beyond the actual writing of it. His intuition had been trying to warn him, it was true, but he had not been able to grasp what it wished to tell him. But it was clear enough to him now why Len had seemed to him like a stranger who might possibly do him harm.... “What makes you think I’m meaning to give up?” he enquired at last, evading the question, and shifting his gaze from the man’s face to the greenhouse behind him. Len wriggled uncomfortably. “Nay, I don’t know ...” he began, looking down. “But it’s been all over the spot for a long while now. They’ve got it down at the village, too. Mrs. Kirkby’s always talked a deal about leaving, you see,” he added, rather more confidently, “and lately it’s seemed to me you were leaning that way yourself.” “How d’you mean--‘leaning’?” Kirkby questioned him a second time, and Machell wriggled again. “Well, sir, you haven’t been like yourself for a bit now, if you’ll excuse my saying so. Absent-minded and such-like, and not hearing when folks spoke.... And, begging your pardon again, sir,” he finished, with a nervous burst, “but you’re getting on. It’s only in reason you should be thinking of retiring before so long....”