'They be.'

'How did he compel you to go, then?'

Hazel sought for an illustration.

'Like a jacksnipe fetches his mate out o' the grass,' she said.

'What did he say?'

'Nought.'

'Then how--?'

'There's things harder than words; words be nought.'

'Go on.'

'It was like as if there was a secret atween us, and I'd got to find it out. Dunna look so fierce, Ed'ard!'

'Did you find out?'

A tide of painful red surged over Hazel; she turned away. But Edward, rendered pitiless by pain, forcibly pulled her back, and made her look at him.

'Did you find out?' he repeated.

'There inna no more,' she whispered.

'Then it is true what he said, that you were his from head to foot?'

'Oh, Ed'ard, let me be! I canna bear it!'

'I wish I could have killed him!' Edward said. 'Then you were his--soul and body?'

'Not soul!'

'You told a good many lies.'

'Oh, Ed'ard, speak kind!'

'What a fool I was! You must have detested me for interrupting the honeymoon. Of course you went back! What a fool I was! And I thought you were pure as an angel.'

'I couldna help it, Ed'ard; the signs said go, and then he threw me in the bracken.'

Something broke in Edward's mind. The control of a life-time went from him.

'Why didn't I?' he cried. 'Why didn't I? Good God! To think I suffered and renounced for this!' He laughed. 'And all so simple! Just throw you in the bracken.'

She shuddered at the knife-edge in his voice, and also at the new realization that broke on her that Edward had it in him to be like Reddin.

'What for do you fritten me?' she whispered.

'But it's not too late,' Edward went on, and his face, that had been grey, flushed scarlet. 'No, it's not too late. I'm not particular.

You're not new, but you'll do.'

He crushed her to him and kissed her.

'I'm your husband,' he said, 'and from this day on I'll have my due.

You've lied to me, been unfaithful to me, made me suffer because of your purity--and you had no purity. Tonight you sleep in my room; you've slept in his.'

'Oh, let me go, Ed'ard! let me go!' She was lost indeed now. For Edward, the righteous and the loving, was no more. Where should she flee? She did not know this man who held her in desperate embrace. He was more terrible to her than all the rest--more terrible, far, than Reddin--for Reddin had never been a god to her.

'I knelt by your bedside and fought my instincts, and they were good instincts. I had a right to them. I gave up more than you can ever guess.'

'I'm much obleeged, Ed'ard,' she said tremblingly.

'I've disgraced my calling, and I've this morning hurt my mother beyond healing.'

'I'd best be going, Ed'ard. The sun'll soon be undering.'

The day blazed towards noon, but she felt the chill of darkness.

'And now,' Edward finished, 'that I have no mother, no self-respect, and no respect for you, I will at least have my pleasure and--my children.

The words softened him a little.

'Hazel,' he said, 'I will forgive you for murdering my soul when you give me a son, I will almost believe in you again, next year--Hazel--'

He knelt by her with his arms round her. She was astonished at the mastery of passion in him. She had never thought of him but as passionless.

'To-night,' he said, and tenderness crept back into his voice, 'is my bridal. There is no saving for me now in denial, only in fulfilment. I can forgive much, Hazel, for I love much. But I can't renounce any more.'

Hazel had heard nothing of what he said since the words, 'when you give me a son.'

They rang in her brain. She felt dazed. At last she looked up affrightedly.

'But,' she said, 'when I have the baby, it unna be yours, but his'n.'

'What?'

'It--it'll be his'n.'

'What?'

He questioned foolishly, like a child. He could not understand.

'It's gone four month since midsummer,' she said, 'and Sally said I was wi' child of--of--'

'You need not go on, Hazel.'