"What? Knaw what, Will? For the Lard's sake doan't 'e look at me like that; you'll frighten my heart into my mouth."

"To think he knawed an' watched an' waited all these years! The spider patience o' that man! I see how 't was. He let the world have its way an' thought to see me broken wi'out any trouble from him. Then, when I conquered, an' got to Miller's right hand, an' beat the world at its awn game, he--an' been nursing this against me! The heart of un!"

He spoke to himself aloud, gazing straight before him at nothing.

"Will, tell me what 't is. Caan't your awn true wife help 'e now or never?"

Recalled by her words he came to himself, picked up her book, and walked on. She spoke again and then he answered,--

"No, 't is a coil wheer you caan't do nought--nor n.o.body. The black power o' waitin'--'t is that I never heard tell of. I thought I knawed what was in men to the core--me, thirty years of age, an' a ripe man if ever theer was wan. But this malice! 'T is enough to make 'e believe in the devil."

"What have you done?" she cried aloud. "Tell me the worst of it, an' how gert a thing he've got against you."

"Bide quiet," he answered. "I'll tell 'e, but not on the public road.

Not but he'll take gude care every ear has it presently. Shut your mouth now an' come up to our chamber arter breakfast an' I'll tell 'e the rights of it. An' that dog knawed an' could keep it close all these years!"

"He's dangerous, an' terrible, an' strong. I see it in your faace, Will."

"So he is, then; ban't no foxin' you 'bout it now. 'T is an awful power of waitin' he've got; an' he haven't bided his time these years an'

years for nothin'. A feast to him, I lay. He've licked his d.a.m.ned lips many a score o' times to think of the food he'd fat his vengeance with bimebye."

"Can he taake you from me? If not I'll bear it."

"Ess fay, I'm done for; credit, fortune, all gone. It might have been death if us had been to war at the time."

She clung to him and her head swam.

"Death! G.o.d's mercy! you've never killed n.o.body, Will?"

"Not as I knaws on, but p'r'aps ban't tu late to mend it. It freezes me--it freezes my blood to think what his thoughts have been. No, no, ban't death or anything like that. But 't is prison for sure if--"

He broke off and his face was very dark.

"What, Will? If what? Oh, comfort me, comfort me, Will, for G.o.d's sake!

An' another li'l wan comin'!"

"Doan't take on," he said. "Ban't my way to squeal till I'm hurt. Let it bide, an' be bright an' cheery come eating, for mother 's down in the mouth at losin' Chris, though she doan't shaw it."

Mrs. Blanchard, with little Timothy, joined the breakfast party at Monks Barton, and a certain gloom hanging over the party, Mr. Blee commented upon it in his usual critical spirit.

"This here givin' in marriage do allus make a looker-on down in the mouth if he 's a sober-minded sort o' man. 'T is the contrast between the courageousness of the two poor sawls jumpin' into the state, an' the solid fact of bein' a man's wife or a woman's husband for all time. The vows they swear! An' that Martin's voice so strong an' cheerful! A teeming cause o' broken oaths the marriage sarvice; yet each new pair comes along like sheep to the slaughter."

"You talk like a bachelor man," said Damaris.

"Not so, Mrs. Blanchard, I a.s.sure 'e! Lookers-on see most of the game.

Ban't the mite as lives in a cheese what can tell e' 'bout the flavour of un. Look at a married man at a weddin'--all broadcloth an'

cheerfulness, like the fox as have lost his tail an' girns to see another chap in the same pickle."

"Yet you tried blamed hard to lose your tail an' get a wife, for all your talk," said Will, who, although his mind was full enough, yet could generally find a sharp word for Mr. Blee.

"Bah to you!" answered the old man angrily. "_That_ for you! 'T is allus your way to bring personal talk into high conversation. I was improvin'

the hour with general thoughts; but the vulgar tone you give to a discourse would muzzle the wisdom o' Solomon."

Miller Lyddon here made an effort to re-establish peace and soon afterwards the meal came to an end.

Half an hour later Phoebe heard from her husband the story of his brief military career: of how he had enlisted as a preliminary to going abroad and making his fortune, how he had become servant to one Captain Tremayne, how upon the news of Phoebe's engagement he had deserted, and how his intention to return and make a clean breast of it had been twice changed by the circ.u.mstances that followed his marriage. Long he took in detailing every incident and circ.u.mstance.

"Coming to think," he said, "of coourse 't is clear as Grimbal must knaw my auld master. I seed his name raised to a Major in the _Western Morning News_ a few year agone, an' he was to Okehampton with a battalion when Hicks come by his death. So that's how't is; an' I ban't gwaine to bide Grimbal's time to be ruined, you may be very sure of that. Now I knaw, I act."

"He may be quite content you should knaw. That's meat an' drink enough for him, to think of you gwaine in fear day an' night."

"Ess, but that's not my way. I ban't wan to wait an enemy's pleasure."

"You won't go to him, Will?"

"Go to un? Ess fay--'fore the day's done, tu."

"That's awnly to hasten the end."

"The sooner the better."

He tramped up and down the bedroom with his eyes on the ground, his hands in his pockets.

"A tremendous thing to tumble up on the surface arter all these years; an' a tremendous time for it to come. 'T was a crime 'gainst the Queen for my awn gude ends. I had to choose 'tween her an' you; I'd do the same to-morrow. The fault weern't theer. It lay in not gwaine back."

"You couldn't; your arm was broke."

"I ought to have gone back arter 't was well. Then time had pa.s.sed, an'

uncle's money corned, an' they never found me. But theer it lies ahead now, sure enough."

"Perhaps for sheer shame he'll bide quiet 'bout it. A man caan't hate another man for ever."

"I thought not, same as you, but Grimbal shaws we 'm wrong."

"Let us go, then; let us do what you thought to do 'fore faither comed forward so kind. Let us go away to furrin paarts, even now."

"I doubt if he'd let me go. 'T is mouse an' cat for the minute.

Leastways so he's thought since he talked to 'e. But he'll knaw differ'nt 'fore he lies in his bed to-night. Must be cut an' dried an'

settled."

"Be slow to act, Will, an'--"

"Theer! theer!" he said, "doan't 'e offer me no advice, theer's a gude gal, 'cause I couldn't stand it even from you, just this minute. G.o.d knaws I'm not above takin' it in a general way, for the best tried man can larn from babes an' sucklings sometimes; but this is a thing calling for nothin' but shut lips. 'T is my job an' I've got to see it through my own way."

"You'll be patient, Will? 'T isn't like other times when you was right an' him wrong. He's got the whip-hand of 'e, so you mustn't dictate."

"Not me. I can be reasonable an' just as any man. I never hid from myself I was doin' wrong at the time. But, when all's said, this auld history's got two sides to it--'specially if you remember that 't was through John Grimbal's awn act I had to do wan wrong thing to save you doin' a worse wan. He'll have to be reasonable likewise. 'T is man to man."

Will's conversation lasted another hour, but Phoebe could not shake his determination, and after dinner Blanchard departed to the Red House, his destination being known to his wife only.