Then they walked together quite silently until something happened to distract their thoughts. A quick step overtook them beside the river and Robert Elvin, his day's work done, saluted them.
"Thought I might get over for a bite of supper, Mr. Bullstone, because I was very wishful to have a word or two."
"And welcome, Bob. How's things?"
"All right—all very right I believe. I'd like for you to see the mangolds. The rain have fetched them up proper and the guano be doing wonders. So it is at Bullstone John Henry tells me."
That night after the evening meal, Bob approached his future father-in-law on the great theme and begged to marry Avis within the year.
Robert was a little independent—so his listener thought.
"My mother sees nothing against it and Avis is willing," he said, "so I hope it may happen by your leave, Mr. Bullstone."
Jacob, morbid now in the presence of other people, detected, or imagined that he detected, a changed note in all who accosted him. And often he did do so, for a great weight of censure had rolled in upon him since his error and many derived a sense of personal right doing and right thinking when they said the obvious things concerning him. But the significance of what he had done did not oppress the younger generation since they had no experience of life to weigh its implications. Robert was too busy about his own affairs to trouble concerning the misfortunes of other folk. He had no intention to be anything but respectful.
"If Avis is agreeable, as you say, then so it shall be, Bob," promised Jacob. Indeed the idea had already dwelt in his mind for other reasons than the happiness of young Elvin. In the ceaseless examination of all paths, in the pursuit of every faint thread which might lead to the heart of his hopes, Bullstone had not neglected the matter of his daughter's marriage. For there, if only for a moment in time, he might possibly hope to meet on common ground with the mother of Avis. He told himself that humanity would pardon a natural and seemly meeting on the occasion of a child's marriage. None could protest at that; and while he knew, and smarted to know, that many held his desire—to receive back his wronged wife—as only another offence; while, indeed, brutally faced in certain, unexpected quarters with harsh censure, when he had confided, as he thought, in sympathetic ears; and while consequently driven to lock his hopes out of sight, since they were held shameless, yet in the matter of Avis, he did see an opportunity against which it would be hard to take exception. The girl must marry from her father's home; was it too much to hope that her mother would see a way to come under his roof on the occasion, if only for an hour? By night the possibility seemed to take substance; by day, when his mind was clearer, it faded; and to-night, though he spoke amiably to Robert and promised the wedding should take place after the harvest, he felt less sanguine than usual. He had expected this interview and desired it; he had fancied it would cheer him and bring some hope, but now that it had come, the light was quenched in anticipation by what he had just heard from Auna.
Yet he struck a cheerful note, and it was not Jacob but Avis who viewed the matter differently, and brought him back to the fact that the past was not to be missed even in this matter. Robert called her when he heard that they might wed, and she came into the kitchen, where her father sat, and thanked him. Jacob declared his good pleasure.