“She’s well too. All the family is flourishing.”

Evidently Lady Ribblemere was disappointed at having her solicitous enquiries cut short, for after a moment’s indecision she turned away, and said vaguely,

“Well, I must be trotting off. I will come and call on you again one day next week and we will have another little talk.”

In the grocer’s shop Elizabeth walked straight into the Vicar’s wife, who exclaimed loudly, and stepped back to inspect her.

“Good gracious, I thought you were in town!” she said, in piercing tones. “Mrs. Trelawney saw you there with some man. So you and Mr. Ramsay haven’t separated after all? What an extraordinary thing!”

“That we haven’t separated?” Elizabeth asked, seething with inward indignation.

Mrs. Edmondston gave vent to a shrill laugh.

“What queer things you do say, dear Mrs. Ramsay! No, really, I’m so delighted to find that all is well with you. One heard such strange rumours. How glad the Vicar will be when I tell him! He was most upset when he heard that one of his flock had gone astray. He always thinks of the people here as his flock. Such a charming idea, isn’t it?

He will be overjoyed. He is so conscientious, you know. But I suppose I should not say that, being his wife. Perhaps you and he will have a little talk one day. He is so sympathetic.”

Elizabeth smiled coldly, but said nothing. When she returned to the Halt she found Stephen in the library, writing. Remembering how she had annoyed him before by creeping about for fear of disturbing him, she went boldly in, and proceeded to let fly.

“I am to have a talk with the dear Vicar, because he’s so sympathetic, and I am one of his flock. And isn’t it an extraordinary thing that we haven’t separated after all? The dear Vicar was so upset.”

Stephen put down his pen.

“Shall I go and knock his teeth down his throat? Blasted impertinence! Elizabeth, you look such a darling when you’re angry.”

She laughed.

“It wasn’t the Vicar. He wouldn’t have said such things; he’s nice. It was his—his—I can’t think of a bad enough word—his abominable, beastly, inquisitive pig of a wife.”

“Why didn’t you throw a bloater at her?” asked Stephen, seeing them in her basket.

“Oh, what an awful idea!” cried Elizabeth, bubbling over. “Fancy her astonishment.” Then she thought that she would make fun of Lady Ribblemere too, to make Stephen laugh.

He did laugh; he said she was a wonderful mimic. She went away thinking, How easy it is! Why didn’t I do all this before?

She went to him proudly that evening, and laid a typewritten copy of the beginning of his manuscript before him. He stared at it, and then at her.