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“Greatly regret inform you your son killed in action on seventh instant. War Office.”

He read it through again and again, before he sat down heavily, dropping it on the table. His round solid face looked still and blind, its mouth just a little open. The girl Pansy came up and stood beside him.

“Here!” he said, “read that.”

The girl read it and put her hands up to her ears.

“That idn’ no yuse,” he said, with surprising quickness.

The girl’s pale face crimsoned; she uttered a little wail and ran from the room.

In the whitewashed kitchen the only moving things were the clock’s swinging pendulum and old Mrs. Bowden’s restless eyes, close to the geranium on the window-sill, where the last of the sunlight fell before passing behind the house. Minute after minute ticked away before Bowden made a movement—his head bowed, his shoulders rounded, his knees apart. Then he got up.

“God for ever darn the blasted colley,” he said slowly, gathering up the telegram. “Where’s my stick?”

Lurching blindly he walked round the room, watched by the old woman’s little dark bright eyes, and went out. He went at his unvaried gait on the path towards Steer’s, slowly climbing the two stiles and emerging from the field into Steer’s farmyard.