If it was open he could step out
without walking across the front of the house.
He turned into the walled garden, and walked quickly down a well-kept
path past the sun-dial to the door. It was open. He walked through it,
and then, with a rather guilty feeling--a feeling he did not care to
analyse--he made his way round the lower half of the village till he
reached the outside wall of The Trellis House.
There he hesitated for a few moments, but even while he was hesitating he
knew that he would go in. Before he could turn the handle the door in the
garden wall was opened by Enid Crofton herself. Radmore was surprised to
see that she was dressed in a black dress, with the orthodox plain linen
collar and cuffs of widowhood. It altered her strangely.
He was at once disappointed and a little relieved also, to find Jack
Tosswill in the garden with her. But soon the three went indoors, and
then, as had often been Mrs. Crofton's experience with admirers in the
past, each man tried to sit the other out.
At last the hostess had to say playfully:--"I'm afraid I must turn you
out now, for I'm expecting my sister-in-law, Miss Crofton."
And then they both, together, took their departure; Radmore feeling that
he had wasted an hour which might have been so very much more profitably
spent in going to see some of his old friends among the cottagers.
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