So they stood and wept above her, and they foreswore her company for
ever. She might regard the primrose eye to eye, but she would receive
no dewy look of comprehension.

No lift of the heart would come with the lifting leaves, no pang of
mysterious pain with bird-song, star-set, dewfall. Even her love of
Foxy would become a groping thing, and not any longer would she know,
when her blind bird made its tentative music, all it meant and all it
dreamed. This very night she had forgotten to lean out and listen as of
old to the soft voices of the trees. She had said her prayer, and then
she had been so tired, and pains had shot through her, and her back had
ached, and she had cried herself to sleep.

'What for did I go to the Hunter's Spinney?' she asked herself. But the
answer was too deep for her, the traitorous impulse of her whole being
too mysterious. She could not answer her question.

Reddin, pacing the room downstairs, drinking whisky, and fuming at his
own compunction, at last grew tired of his silent house.

'Damn it! Why shouldn't I go up?' he said.

He opened Hazel's door.

'Look here,' he said; 'the house is mine, and so are you. I'm coming to
bed.' He was met by that most intimidating reply to all bluster--silence.

She was asleep; and all night long, while he snored, she tossed in her
sleep and moaned.