through the woods at the back of Lee's cottage. Cyril puts something
into a hollow tree, and intimates a chaffinch's call. Another bird
replies. Cyril walks on to Oldport, leaving Everard and Lilian, between
whom there follows a warm love scene and betrothal. During this episode
Mrs. Lee, Alma's stepmother, tells her husband that Alma is gone to meet
her unknown lover in the wood at the signal of a chaffinch's call. Lee
follows, and finds Alma there _alone_. He picks up a paper she had torn
and dropped; it contains an assignation for that evening at dusk. Before
luncheon Everard changes the grey suit he was wearing, and had stained
in a muddy ditch. He goes to a lonely cottage on the downs in the
afternoon; returning in the evening, he gets a black eye while romping
with little Winnie Maitland. After bathing the eye, he sponges the
stained suit, and is surprised to find blood on it. Cyril has been
absent in Oldport all day, and on his return goes to bed with a
headache, speaking to nobody. A man in Henry's grey suit passes through
the hall at dusk, followed by the cat, who never runs after anyone but
Lilian and Cyril.

That evening, New Year's eve, there is a gay party of rustics at the
wheelwright's house. In the midst of Granfer's best story in rushes
Grove, the waggoner, crying that Ben Lee had just been found murdered in
the wood. The same night Alma gives birth to a son.

Next day, Cyril, in great mental anguish, goes to Admiral Everard's
house, and incidentally puts to a brother clergyman there a case of
conscience: Should a man who has acted unwisely, and is guilty of
unintentional homicide, imperil a useful and brilliant career by
confession? Not if he had such great gifts and opportunities of doing
good as Cyril has, he is told. By this pronouncement and a love scene
with Marion, Cyril is much comforted.