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a bend in the stream. The footman, under Lady Lacklander’s direction, set up her easel, filled her water-jar at the stream, placed her camp stool and put her shooting-stick beside it. When she fell back from her work in order to observe it as a whole, Lady Lacklander was in the habit of supporting her bulk upon the shooting-stick.
    The footman left her. She would reappear in her own time at Nunspardon and change for dinner at nine o’clock. The footman would return and collect her impedimenta. She fixed her spectacles on her nose, directed at her subject the sort of glance Nurse Kettle often bestowed on a recalcitrant patient, and set to work, massive and purposeful before her easel.
    It was at half past six that she established herself there, in the meadow on the left bank of the Chyne not far below Bottom Bridge.
    At seven, Mr. Danberry-Phinn, having assembled his paraphernalia for fishing, set off down Watt’s Hill. He did not continue to Bottom Bridge but turned left, and made for the upper reaches of the Chyne.
    At seven, Mark Lacklander, having looked in on a patient in the village, set off on foot along Watt’s lane. He carried his case of instruments, as he wished to lance the abscess of the gardener’s child at Hammer, and his racket and shoes, as he proposed to play tennis with Rose Cartarette. He also hoped to have an extremely serious talk with her father.
    At seven, Nurse Kettle, having delivered Lady Lacklander’s note at Hammer, turned in at Commander Syce’s drive and free-wheeled to his front door.
    At seven, Sir George Lacklander, finding himself favourably situated in a sheltered position behind a group of trees, embraced Mrs. Cartarette with determination, fervour and an ulterior motive.
    It was at this hour that the hopes, passions and fears that had slowly mounted in intensity since the death of Sir Harold Lacklander began to gather an emotional momentum and slide towards each other like so many downhill streams, influenced in their courses by accidents and detail, but destined for a common and profound agitation.
    At Hammer, Rose and her father sat in his study and gazed at each other in dismay.
    “When did Mark tell you?” Colonel Cartarette asked.
    “On that same night… after you came in and… and found us. He went to Nunspardon and his father told him and then he came back here and told me. Of course,” Rose said looking at her father with eyes as blue as periwinkles behind their black lashes, “of course it wouldn’t have been any good for Mark to pretend nothing had happened. It’s quite extraordinary how each of us seems to know exactly what the other one’s thinking.”
    The Colonel leant his head on his hand and half smiled at this expression of what he regarded as one of the major fallacies of love. “My poor darling,” he murmured.
    “Daddy, you do understand, don’t you, that theoretically Mark is absolutely on your side? Because… well, because the facts of any case always should be demonstrated. I mean, that’s the scientific point of view.”
    The Colonel’s half-smile twisted, but he said nothing.
    ’’And I agree, too, absolutely,” Rose said, “other things being equal.”
    “Ah!” said the Colonel.
    “But they’re not, darling,” Rose cried out, “they’re nothing like equal. In terms of human happiness, they’re all cockeyed. Mark says his grandmother’s so desperately worried that with all this coming on top of Sir Harold’s death and everything she may crack up altogether.”
    The Colonel’s study commanded a view of his own spinney and of that part of the valley that the spinney did not mask: Bottom Bridge and a small area below it on the right bank of the Chyne. Rose went to the window and looked down. “She’s down there somewhere,” she said, “sketching in Bottom Meadow on the far side. She only sketches when she’s fussed.”
    “She’s sent me a chit. She wants me to go down and talk to her at eight o’clock when I suppose