CHAPTER XXIX SET APART

It was very quiet in the living-room at Corner Cottage. A sudden heavy silence had descended upon it, broken only by small familiar sounds that drifted in through the open window—the murmurous cooing of wood pigeons in the trees, the distant whirr of a reaping machine, the cluck of an old hen who was conducting her brood of chickens on an illicit tour of exploration. The afternoon sunlight flickered gaily into the room—dancing on brass and pewter—deriding the white, strained faces of the man and woman who stood the…