One afternoon, he persuaded them to drive with him to a farm on the marsh, and it did her good to be welcomed in the old way, and to spend an hour chatting with the farmer’s wife while the men went round the buildings. It was a quiet day in February, and the sands were a dim brown beneath the mountains’ dim blue. Only the new-turned earth struck a rich, deep note against the faint tones surrounding. They drove home in silence, drawing in the magic that circles a certain northern marsh.
But at the gate of Kilne their peace was rudely broken, for the Crump victoria came up, carrying Mrs. Lyndesay, pale and stiffly erect, and as the old agent stepped from the dog-cart and stood aside, hat in hand, she passed him without the slightest sign of recognition.
It was like a blow in the face to the proud old man. Still bareheaded, he stood gazing after the retreating carriage as in a dream, and when Deb laid her fingers on his arm he pushed them off with a shaking hand.
“And that’s what I’ve earned from Crump!” he cried at last, hoarse and trembling. “I was William Lyndesay’s right hand for twenty years, and now his widow cuts me at my door! It’s time I was under Crump sod when Crump no longer knows me!”
Then he turned to his daughter in a sudden blind access of helplessness, the tears running down his face.
“She did know me, didn’t she, Deb? She couldn’t mistake Roger Lyndesay at the very gate of Kilne? She must have known me,—she couldn’t have taken me for somebody else?”
“It’s getting dark so fast, dad,” Deb said quietly, but cut to the heart and bitterly blaming herself for his pain, for was not this moment of humiliation the direct result of that in which she had engaged herself to Stanley, not a hundred yards from where they stood? “It’s so easy to look at people without seeing them, if you happen to be thinking of something else. And there isn’t any reason why she should cut you. She knows what she owes you too well for that. Don’t be upset. It was only an accident, dad, I’m sure!”
But it was not an accident, and she knew it, and Roger knew it, too. He took her arm, and let her lead him into the house, walking like an old, old man who had had a heavy fall; and after a moment’s hesitation Callander whistled up the Kilne man to his horse, and followed them in.
He stood just inside the parlour door in the dusk, watching Deb as she leaned comfortingly over the distressed old figure in the arm-chair, and listening to that note in her voice which was never struck for any one but her father.
“It isn’t true that you’re forgotten at Crump! Why, it’s only a few days since Christian spent the whole evening with you! He sent you the new photograph of the house on your birthday,—don’t you remember?—and the old servants gave you the walking-stick of Crump oak with the inscription. Don’t fret, dear. There isn’t any need,—really there isn’t!”