FORE:He wanted to smash Tilly even more than he wanted to smash Realf. He had seen her twice since her marriagemeeting her once in Rye, and once on Boarzelland each sight had worked him into a greater rage. Her little figure had strengthened and filled out, her demure self-confidence had increased, her prettiness was even more adorable now that the rose had deepened on her cheeks and her gowns strained over her breast; she was enough to fill any man with wrath at the joke of[Pg 237] things. Tilly ought to be receiving the wages of her treachery in weariness and anxiety, fading colour and withering fleshand here she was all fat and rosy and happy, well-fed and well-beloved. He hated her and called her a harlotbecause she had betrayed Odiam for hire and trafficked in its shame.
FORE:She struggled to her feet, sobs shaking and tearing her, and stumbled through the darkness to the door. Still sobbing she dragged herself upstairs, clinging to the rail, and every now and then stopping and bending double. Her loud sobs rang through the house, and soon the womenfolk were about her, questioning her, soothing her, and in the end putting her, still weeping, to bed. While outside in the barn Reuben watched in agony beside a sick cow."Ah," said the youth in the open-work socks approvingly. "That's very like an episode in 'Meryon's House,' you knowthat glorious scene in which Jennifer the Prostitute goes down to the New Forest with Meryon and suddenly begins dancing in a glade."
FORE:She coloured, and began to stutter something.
THREE:
THREE:More than once Realf and Tilly saw him in the distance, a tall, sinister figure, haunting their northern boundaries.
