"I expect that's true."
"Oh yes, it's true. I've proved it. A thing happens and you're chin deep in it. Then you say to yourself, 'Suppose I was dead and looking down on this job from my heavenly mansion, how would it seem then?' And if you've got the intellects to do it, then you often get a gleam of sense that you never will while you're up against the facts and part of 'em. It's like the judge trying a case, without having any interest in it beyond the will that right shall be done."
"Men haven't the gift for that."
"They have not; yet even to try to do it stills passion and breeds patience and helps religion."
"Very good advice, no doubt."
"This coffin will go along early to-morrow morning, and I'll bring half the hurdles this week in two or three loads; and tell Joe the price be up a thought since last year. He knows that as well as I do."
Maynard noted the instructions in a little pocket-book and presently departed. He took a meal of bread and cheese and cider at the inn hard by, then set out on an extended round, walked to Widecombe, tramped the Moors, watched the swaleing fires, that now daily burned upon them, and did not return home until the hour of milking.
CHAPTER XI
NEW BRIDGE
On New Bridge, over Dart, stood Dinah with the sun warm upon her face, while a first butterfly hovered on the golden broom at water's edge. She had sent a message to Johnny by his sister that she would meet him here, and now, while she waited, she speculated on the difference between the beauty of the May day and the ugliness of what she was about to do. But she had decided at last, and having done so, she could only wonder why it had taken her so many weeks to reach a decision. To her direct instincts delay had been a suffering and produced a condition of mental bad health; but it was not for her own sake that she had delayed, and she knew now that her hesitation had been no kindness to Johnny, though endured largely out of affection for him. She was convinced, beyond possibility of doubt, that her regard could not be called love and she had determined with herself, as she was bound to do, that to marry under such circumstances would be no marriage in any seemly interpretation of the contract. She had the imagination to know, however, that what was beaten ground to her—a way exploited a thousand times by day and sleepless night—was no such thing for him. He had said that he would have nothing more to do with her until she named the day, and he was coming now under expectation of hearing her do so. Instead he must learn that the day could never be named.