Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/154

 lengthening on the lawn when he turned in his own gates. He had met the fruit wagon laden with crates of strawberries on its way to the station. On a circular seat under one of the walnut trees he saw a woman sitting. It was Fawnie. She must have got her things from the shack, for she wore a dress of coarse white embroidery, a red sash, and a hat nodding with red poppies. It was amazing how she gave the effect of ease, and grace, even elegance, sitting erect on that white seat. And the extraordinary cheek of her, thought Derek. Mrs. Machin would be in a taking, as Phœbe said; he dreaded meeting her. The situation was getting preposterous. . . . Mrs. Machin sitting up at night. . . Fawnie disporting herself on the front lawn. . . the infant, the Lord only knew what he was doing. Tomorrow, when it was not so hot he must send Fawnie away somewhere. He imagined how, under that white dress, her shoulders were still covered with welts. . . . That night Mrs. Machin again took up her position beside the lamp on the dresser. Too exhausted to knit, she sat with clasped hands staring fixedly at her grotesque shadow on the wall.

"You know, you are going to make yourself ill," whispered Derek, vehemently, from the bottom of the stairs.

"There are worse things than illness—or death," she retorted.

And, once more, there being nothing to say, Derek went to bed.

The heat still held. When he came out of his room the next morning at seven, it seemed like a ferocious noonday. Lake and sky seemed merged into some dazzling new element that bewildered and exhausted.

He sat down at the breakfast table and rested his head