He stopped when he was opposite the familiar pigsty, and lifted his head, breathing deeply. At that moment Fate seemed so kind to him that its kindness was almost too great. His love for Christie seemed to touch with a kind of transparency everything that he looked at. Rapidly he crossed the road, entered his house, and ran upstairs.

He found the room dark; but when he had lit a candle he saw that the girl was lying wide-awake, her head propped high on the two pillows. He was in such an exalted mood that he was hardly surprised at her first words.

“Oh, Wolf, Wolf,” she said, “I’m almost sorry you’ve come so soon. I’ve been looking through that window for hours and hours. What’s happened to me I don’t know; but I’ve not felt like this since that evening when you first loved me in the river-fields.”