She threw a nod of farewell towards the shadow which she believed to contain Emma, and set herself to the hill and so to the short cut across the fields. All the way behind her as she went the bells clanged and clamoured Miss Marigold’s joy, and Mrs. Clapham smiled as she listened to them, and then wept as well, because of that note of finality in the wedding-peal which is almost all that the married woman hears. The passion of its rejoicing speaks so vehemently of something brought to an end, a road closed, a door shut, a sharp cutting as with a knife. The joy of the wedding-peal must needs be emphatic and loud, because it is a joy that demands utter fearlessness if it is to remain joy at all. So across the fields Mrs. Clapham went smiling and weeping, but especially weeping, shedding the tears of all mothers for the end of the road of youth.... PART III THE TEMPLE CHAPTER I She drew great breaths of relief as she made her way through the fields, treading the little worn paths between the sloping stretches of green. Between the warm fastnesses of the hedges she felt sheltered, but not cramped—those close coverts of life which wore so rich and crowded a look. The bright line of the sky barring the tops to the west told her that very soon she would see the sea. Indeed, the broad, lifted, lightened sense which belongs to a coast was not only in the look of things but in the feel. There was a thrill in the air as of something running towards freedom of breath and limb. The very land itself seemed to rush onwards rejoicing to its escape. Unpleasant as the experience had been, she could almost have found it in her heart to be glad of the “little chat,” because the walk through the fields seemed so gracious by sheer contrast. Like most country women, she very seldom walked for walking’s sake, merely going mechanically wherever necessity happened to take her. But she appreciated the country well enough when she had time to look at it, and if she did not think of it very often it was because it was always there. To-day, however, there was something almost poignant about coming out of Emma’s cave into this sweet openness and spacious peace. It was almost like leaving a prison to walk direct out of the house that was Emma Catterall’s mind into this wide and wonderful house that was the Mind of God Himself. As she went along, with the bells clashing and clanging behind her back, she tried to shed all those thoughts of Emma which tugged at her brain like spiked brambles at a skirt. Indeed, it seemed to her, after a while, as she got further away and higher, that she shed not only Emma, but the whole of the village as well. Up here in the clean fields she seemed alone in a new world, with nothing of any importance but the free road to her desire.