‘So instead you’re running around behind his back? Hiding notes for each other, is that it?’

‘You did see me then.’

‘At the gate? I did.’

‘Well, how else are we supposed to communicate when Dad refuses to let him anywhere near the place?’

He does not want to know about her affair, and yet now the secret is shared between them, he is greedy for more information, even though each morsel sticks in his throat and once swallowed rests like lead in his stomach.

‘So, if you don’t mind me asking, how long has this been going on?’

‘A couple of months.’ Her voice warms with the reminiscence. ‘Long enough for us to know how we feel about each other. We met at the Hunt Ball. He came up to the house a couple of days later to ask me out, but Dad sent him packing. We found a way, though, to see each other.’

‘And has he tried talking with your dad since then?’

‘Gordon? Why would he want to? You’ve seen for yourself how Dad is with him.’

‘Has he tried though? Walked up to the door and asked to speak to him, man to man?’

‘Well … no … because we both know what sort of reception he’ll get.’

Jack rests his weight on the sack, the hessian crushed in his tightening fists. ‘But he’s going to have to sometime, surely?’

‘In time, I suppose.’ The petulance of her one-shouldered shrug irritates him.

‘No time like the present, lass. If he means well, let him come.’

‘You make it sound so easy.’

‘Perhaps it’s easier than you think.’

She says nothing, allowing herself to be distracted by the flapping of a pigeon that has become trapped inside the barn. It flutters about the rafters until, exhausted by panic, it perches on a beam to take stock of its predicament. Gwen gestures towards the sack. She is sullen again, and for a moment Jack fears he has crossed a line and claimed a familiarity he has no right to, but he cannot square the young man’s behaviour with his own sense of what is right. Nor can his envy see past Gordon’s indifference.

He heaves the sack onto his shoulder with a sigh. He does not want to afford Allingham room between them and so seeks to change the subject in the hope of winning back her easy companionship.

‘Why do you dip them, the sheep?’ he asks as they slice through shafts of sunlight on their way to the open doors.

‘To protect against scab.’