no one knew what had happened to him.

But having told the tale the vicar was again seized with compunction.

"I oughtn't to have told you--I really oughtn't; just on your settling
in--I hope you won't tell Miss Henderson?"

Janet's amused reply was interrupted by Rachel's entrance. The vicar
arose with eagerness to receive her. He was evidently attracted by his
new parishioners and anxious to make a good impression on them. Miss
Henderson's reception of the vicar, however, was far more guarded. The
easy friendliness of manner which had attracted the bailiff Hastings was,
at first at any rate, entirely absent. Her attitude was almost that of a
woman defending herself against possible intrusion, and Janet Leighton,
looking on, and occasionally sharing in the conversation, was surprised
by it, as indeed she was by so many things concerning Rachel now that
their acquaintance was deepening; surprised also, as though it were a new
thing, by her friend's good looks as she sat languidly chatting with the
vicar. Rachel had merely put on a blue overall above her land-worker's
dress. But her beautiful head, with its wealth of brown hair, and her
face, with its sensuous fulness of cheek and lip, its rounded lines, and
lovely colour--like a slightly overblown rose--were greatly set off by
the simple folds of blue linen; and her feet and legs, shapely but not
small, in their khaki stockings and shoes, completed the general effect
of lissom youth. The flush and heat of hard bodily work had passed away.
She had had time to plunge her face into cold water and smooth her hair.
But the atmosphere of the harvest field, its ripeness and glow, seemed to
be still about her. A classically minded man might have thought of some
nymph in the train of Demeter, might have fancied a horn of plenty, or a
bow, slung from the sunburnt neck.