"Let me see."

"No, no!" She ran off into the gloom of the sluggish dawn. He did
not attempt to follow her. When she reached her father's door she
stood on the step and looked back. Mr. Melbury's men had arrived,
and were loading up the spars, and their lanterns appeared from
the distance at which she stood to have wan circles round them,
like eyes weary with watching. She observed them for a few
seconds as they set about harnessing the horses, and then went
indoors.



CHAPTER IV.


There was now a distinct manifestation of morning in the air, and
presently the bleared white visage of a sunless winter day emerged
like a dead-born child. The villagers everywhere had already
bestirred themselves, rising at this time of the year at the far
less dreary hour of absolute darkness. It had been above an hour
earlier, before a single bird had untucked his head, that twenty
lights were struck in as many bedrooms, twenty pairs of shutters
opened, and twenty pairs of eyes stretched to the sky to forecast
the weather for the day.

Owls that had been catching mice in the out-houses, rabbits that
had been eating the wintergreens in the gardens, and stoats that
had been sucking the blood of the rabbits, discerning that their
human neighbors were on the move, discreetly withdrew from