He folded his arms, and rested his head against the fireplace, whilst she
removed the dishes from the table. On the mantelpiece stood an inkpot and
some sheets of paper. Presently he took them down and turned up the corner
of the tablecloth.

"I will write a few lines," he said; "till you are ready to sit down and
talk."

Em, as she shook out the tablecloth, watched him bending intently over his
paper. He had changed much. His face had grown thinner; his cheeks were
almost hollow, though they were covered by a dark growth of beard.

She sat down on the skin beside him, and felt the little bundle on the
bench; it was painfully small and soft. Perhaps it held a shirt and a
book, but nothing more. The old black hat had a piece of unhemmed muslin
twisted round it, and on his elbow was a large patch so fixed on with
yellow thread that her heart ached. Only his hair was not changed, and
hung in silky beautiful waves almost to his shoulders.

Tomorrow she would take the ragged edge off his collar, and put a new band
round his hat. She did not interrupt him, but she wondered how it was that
he sat to write so intently after his long weary walk. He was not tired
now; his pen hurried quickly and restlessly over the paper, and his eye was
bright. Presently Em raised her hand to her breast, where lay the letter
yesterday had brought her. Soon she had forgotten him, as entirely as he
had forgotten her; each was in his own world with his own. He was writing
to Lyndall. He would tell her all he had seen, all he had done, though it
were nothing worth relating. He seemed to have come back to her, and to be
talking to her now he sat there in the old house.