Still Friday afternoon, Leo is devastated. The one explanation that had never crossed his mind—that Marian and Ted are in love—suddenly becomes undeniable. He feels foolish and betrayed; his idealized image of Marian collapses. He connects romantic love with vulgar comic postcards and the silliness he most despises, yet senses that ridicule cannot replace the admiration he once felt. To protect her, he seals the envelope before crossing the water-meadow toward the farm.

The intense sun seems to soften his judgment as he walks. When he arrives, Ted cheerfully hails him as the postman. After reading and pocketing the letter, Ted praises him. Leo then says flatly that Marcus’s return means no more deliveries. Ted’s energy visibly drains. He presses Leo: Marian depends on the notes and will stop liking Leo if he quits; before Leo came along, she used to cry. The thought of Marian crying brings tears to Leo’s eyes, which Ted notices.

In the farm kitchen, the talk turns to Ted’s pregnant mare, Smiler. When Leo asks what caused it, Ted says she had been spooning. The connection strikes Leo hard. He declares spooning silly; Ted counters that only envious people call it that and insists it is natural. Through pointed questions, Leo establishes Ted’s view that love and spooning are inseparable and that a marriage without it would not be very lover-like. When Leo asks whether spooning produces babies, Ted is startled and denies it, then struggles to reconcile this with what he said about the horse, finally claiming that nature treats people and animals differently. Leo finds this unsatisfying; he is still unsure what spooning actually entails.

Ted then proposes a bargain: A full explanation in exchange for Leo continuing as postman. Leo agrees, recognizing that Ted’s earlier emotional appeal has already worked on him. As they finish, Ted mentions the straw-stack, which Leo has entirely forgotten—a fact Leo takes as evidence that he has moved beyond that simple pleasure. Ted sends him up the ladder while staying behind to write something.

Saturday is cooler and overcast, the first clouds Leo has seen at Brandham. At breakfast, Denys and Lord Trimingham debate the threat Ted Burgess poses as a batsman in the upcoming cricket match. Mrs. Maudsley puts Denys in his place by noting that Ted scored nothing the previous year. The men retire to the smoking room to finalize the team. Waiting outside, Leo learns from Trimingham that the last spot has gone to Jim, the pantry boy, and that Leo will serve as 12th man. Having expected nothing, he is overjoyed to be part of the team.

Trimingham asks Leo to deliver two messages to Marian: not to be angry about Leo’s exclusion from the 11, and to ask whether she will sing Home, Sweet Home at the evening concert. Leo finds Marian arranging flowers. She teases him about which player he would most like to see injured so he could field. Leo talks her out of being angry at Trimingham over the team selection, then delivers the concert request. Marian replies that she will sing if Trimingham sings She Wore a Wreath of Roses. Leo brings this back to Trimingham, who is clearly hurt since he cannot sing at all. To spare his feelings, Leo reframes her comment as a joke. When Marian later asks what Trimingham said, Leo claims he laughed. Marian looks dissatisfied.

After debating with Marcus over whether a school cap is appropriate dress, Leo reflects uneasily on the double life he is now living. The team walks to the ground together, class distinctions temporarily dissolved. Leo is initially troubled by the village team’s mismatched attire but revises his judgment, comparing them to the Boers—capable despite their equipment. During introductions, he blushes when presented to Ted; Ted smooths it over by mentioning the straw-stack visits. Ted also mentions that Smiler has had her foal. Trimingham wins the toss and the Hall bats first.

Mrs. Maudsley’s party arrives late; Marcus sits with them while Leo sits in the pavilion with the team. Trimingham is dismissed early, but Marian applauds vigorously, which Leo chalks up to her not understanding the game. Mr. Maudsley then bats with calm shrewdness, finding gaps in the field rather than hitting with power. When Denys joins him and repeatedly waves him back from running, Mr. Maudsley finally shouts at him to run; Denys sets off too late and is run out. The remaining batsmen contribute little. The Hall finishes on 142, with Mr. Maudsley unbeaten past 50. He earns a standing ovation. At five o’clock, the village needs 143 to win.

The village batsmen fall steadily and, with victory seeming certain, Leo’s attention drifts. He studies an enormous cloud building toward the sun and decides it carries no threat of thunder.

Ted Burgess comes in whistling, which Leo considers ungentlemanly. His loyalties are immediately split: He is committed to the Hall, but he cannot quite will Ted to fail. After a ragged start, Ted begins to middle the ball, clearing the pavilion roof with one enormous hit. The crowd cheers and the game tightens. Leo realizes with a jolt that Ted could actually win it. He frames the contest in broader terms—Hall against village, order against disorder—yet the traitor within him roots for the individual over the side.

Nearby, Marian is visibly undone, her face flushed and her lips trembling. Her emotion deepens Leo’s conflict. Soon after, a fielder injures his hand stopping one of Ted’s hits, and Leo is called in as substitute 12th man. He understands what Marian wants and cannot fully help wanting the same thing.

With the village seven runs short and only one wicket remaining, Ted drives Trimingham’s first ball to the boundary. The crowd roars, and Leo’s feelings cross over entirely: He now wants Ted to win. On the next delivery, Ted swings hard and sends the ball high and straight toward Leo. Leo raises his hand and instinctively catches the ball, though the impact knocks him flat. Rising with the ball still clutched to his chest, he hears the applause. The Hall has won.

Trimingham congratulates him briefly but with adult gravity. Walking off, Leo feels both elation and a sudden sharp regret. He approaches Ted and apologizes for catching him out; Ted waves this aside and praises the catch, saying he had forgotten Leo was on the field until he looked around. The crowd cheers Ted hardest of all. Leo notices that Marian does not look up as Ted passes. Back at the Hall, Leo checks Marcus’s scorecard and is annoyed to find the catch credited only to a substitute, not to him by name.

The post-match supper at the village hall fills Leo with almost dizzy elation. Mr. Maudsley gives a fluent and witty speech, finding something to say about nearly every player; he singles Leo out as a young David who defeated the Goliath of Black Farm. Ted, sitting across from Leo, gives him a broad wink.

When it emerges that the piano accompanist is unwell, Marian steps forward and takes the piano. Players are called on to sing in turn; she accompanies all of them with a skill that far outclasses their performances. Ted resists being called until the crowd and Lord Trimingham wear him down. He walks to the dais and sings Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes, shaky at first but improving enough to earn an encore. For that, he sings a sentimental ballad about being remembered when a lover turns to someone else. Leo is moved by its melancholy in a literary way. When Ted and Marian share the applause, Ted bows clumsily instead of gallantly, drawing laughter and a remark from Trimingham about his lack of polish.

Lord Trimingham then calls on Leo. Reaching the platform, Leo realizes he has no sheet music. Marian tells him she can play The Minstrel Boy from memory. Leo is overwhelmed with devotion, feeling he is the song’s soldier going to die for his cause—and that Marian is the cause. His performance is the evening’s greatest success. For an encore he proposes a sacred Handel aria. Marian does not know the accompaniment, but an audience member produces a songbook. Leo sings the full piece, including a dramatic recitative about a fate worse than death, imagining he and Marian face it together. After sustained applause, Marian rises, takes his hand to bow with him, then drops him a formal curtsy alone.

Later, Leo dozes and wakes to Marian singing Home, Sweet Home. She refuses an encore, and the audience’s admiration only grows. On the walk back, Marcus teases Leo mercilessly about his eye-rolling during The Minstrel Boy, but concedes he did not entirely embarrass himself, and mentions that Lord Trimingham praised Leo highly to Mrs. Maudsley. Marcus also confesses that seeing Ted beside Marian at the piano unsettled him deeply.

Once clear of the rest of the party, Marcus swears Leo to secrecy and reveals what his mother told him: Marian is engaged to Lord Trimingham, and the announcement will follow the upcoming ball. Leo says he is glad—and believes, at that moment, that he is.