She took up, after that, the encouraging thought of Ellen’s coming, and the short but beautiful happiness that her visit offered. For already she was fast recovering her natural poise. Her mind, clearing and gaining in strength, fastened upon hope after hope, as a child, strange to its feet, fastens and clutches for support. Already she saw Ellen in the house, and after Ellen the little girl; and she rose up out of her desolation and grasped bravely at the future. Kirkby was asking for the Hall letter when she heard him again, that letter upon which so short a time ago the whole of her salvation had hung, and which now seemed as remote and immaterial as if it had never existed. They hunted for it together, and discovered it at last in a spot where they could only have come across it by the merest accident. She could not remember putting it there, nor had she seen it handled by Mrs. Machell. It was almost as if some inner self of her own had secretly put it away, knowing long before she knew it herself that she would have no use for it. Going to the hearth, where the fire, though low, was still red and smouldering, Kirkby made as if to tear the letter across. “I’d best burn it, hadn’t I?” he paused first to ask her, looking at her. “It’s better not left about.” For one last moment a pang shot through her as she stood there, staring at it, seeing the chance which she had foregone made concrete and passing from her for ever. She put out her hand as if meaning to snatch it from him, and then dropped it again. “Nay, burn it,” she said, turning away, and quivered at the tearing of the paper. Even turned away she saw the little flame which the letter made before it died down and was no more.... “I’ll see about getting you a bite,” she said then, moving away from the hearth, and remembering with a housewife’s shame that Kirkby must be nearly starving. Candle in hand, she went to and fro between kitchen and larder, and soon had the belated meal set and waiting on the table. When it was ready she called to him where he stood at the house-door, staring into the darkness. “I’ve just remembered I’ve promised my pink vases to Mrs. Machell!” she laughed ruefully, her voice, in spite of all that she had been through, sounding natural and brisk. “That’s if I went to Canada, I mean; and now that Len won’t be getting the job I don’t like to disappoint her.” “I’ll buy you another pair if you want ’em,” Kirkby answered, without turning. “Mason and Mawson’s in Witham is as full of them as it can stick.” Mattie laughed again, with cheerful disgust. “Nay, then, I’ve no use for ’em if there’s that many going begging!... Your supper’s ready for you now if you feel like having it.” He made no movement, however, to come within, and after a moment she went across to her jam-cupboard and threw it open. For several minutes she stood gazing soberly at its contents, while Kirkby, staring into the dark, saw his dawnbell rising blue and exquisite against the soil....