Doomsday by Warwick Deeping

Arnold Furze struck back along the lane, and turned into the Gore Field by the gate opposite the pond. He had blown out his lantern, for in truth it had not been needed after its lighting of Mary Viner down the steps and along the path, with the moon's silver lamp rising in the sky. Furze loitered here, one arm along the bar of the gate, the old thorn trees in the hedge making a shaggy blackness, and the Gore sloping away from his feet like a mirror that has been breathed upon.

His sheep were pastured here, for he preferred to run them on the grass to folding them on a root crop, and at the end of the field and under the shelter of the Gore Wood were the pens and shelters of hurdles and faggots where the lambing ewes and their lambs were kept snug for the first few days. But for the moment Furze was not thinking of his ewes. He was thinking of Mary Viner and her big brown eyes with their smoking lashes, and her quick changes of colour, and her air of breathlessness. A creature so easily scared and silenced--so he thought. And sensitive, and not too happy. Yet, she puzzled him, and he, supposed that he did not know much about women. He had been too busy doing things. But her moods and their expressions seemed to blow this way and that like brown leaves on a March day; she appeared to be moved by vague currents that would not have been perceived by his stronger nature. She was yea and nay all in one breath, giving him the impression of a palpitating, warm-blooded bird. Her refusing to enter his house-- for instance, and then her coming in, and the queer blight that had swept suddenly over her face after he had closed the door of Mrs. Damans' parlour. Certainly, he had hesitated about asking her in, for never till that moment had he realized the almost sordid poverty of his house. It had come upon him in a flash when he had seen her there with the white jug pressed to her bosom, and her brown eyes all glimmering. It had come as a shock. He had put out a hand and closed that other door because he had felt that house's nakedness and was suddenly ashamed of it.