Lucia was lying awake, too, next door, and if either of them could have known what the other was thinking about, they would both instantly have fallen into a refreshing sleep, instead of tossing and turning as they were doing. She, too, knew that for years she and Georgie had let it be taken for granted that they were mutually devoted, and had both about equally encouraged that impression. There had been an interlude, it is true, when that wonderful Olga Bracely had shone (like evening stars singing) over Riseholme, but she was to be absent from England for a year; besides she was married, and even if she had not been would certainly not have married Georgie. ‘So we needn’t consider Olga,’ thought Lucia. ‘It’s all about Georgie and me. Dear Georgie: he was so terribly glad when I began to be myself again, and how he jumped at the plan of coming to Tilling and spending the night here! And how he froze on to the idea of taking Mallards Cottage as soon as he knew I had got Mallards! I’m afraid I’ve been encouraging him to hope. He knows that my year of widowhood is almost over, and on the very eve of its accomplishment, I take him off on this solitary expedition with me. Dear me: it looks as if I was positively asking for it. How perfectly horrible!’

Though it was quite dark, Lucia felt herself blushing.

‘What on earth am I to do?’ continued these disconcerting reflections. ‘If he asks me to marry him, I must certainly refuse, for I couldn’t do so: quite impossible. And then when I say no, he has every right to turn on me, and say I’ve been leading him on. I’ve been taking moonlight walks with him, I’m at this moment staying alone with him in an hotel. Oh dear! Oh dear!’

Lucia sat up in bed and listened. She longed to hear sounds of snoring from the next room, for that would show that the thought of the fulfilment of his long devotion was not keeping him awake, but there was no sound of any kind.

‘I must do something about it tomorrow,’ she said to herself, ‘for if I allow things to go on like this, these two months here with him will be one series of agitating apprehensions. I must make it quite clear that I won’t before he asks me. I can’t bear to think of hurting Georgie, but it will hurt him less if I show him beforehand he’s got no chance. Something about the beauty of a friendship untroubled with passion. Something about the tranquillity that comes with age… There’s that eternal old church clock striking three. Surely it must be fast.’

Lucia lay down again: at last she was getting sleepy.