"Give me but what this ribband bound;
Take all the rest the sun goes round.'"
"I can help you."
"It's so difficult to realise that you are alive. The countryside has quite settled it. All men believe you to be in another world. Malherb's announcement was taken with wonderful self-control. I don't want to hurt your delicate feelings, Lovey, but not a soul went into mourning. In fact, only one man in all Devon felt your taking off, and that was Maurice Malherb."
"You laugh at me. Well, here's a thing to make you laugh again. I'll tell you how to get her without any more trouble."
"I had thought perhaps to approach the parent birds once more. But what's the use? Her mother counts for nought. Her father has got his head full of his own miseries. 'Doubtful ills plague us worst,' as Seneca so justly observes. While he hesitated as to whether you were really extinct, he must have gone through hot fires. Now he knows the worst and waits to suffer for it; but, what's interesting, not a soul moves against him."
"That's where my plan comes in then. You lay a charge of murder on him, an' the maid will marry you to shut your mouth."
"Worthy of you, but foreign to my genius. Besides, though I blush to say it, everybody sympathises with him. It is always very painful to hear the estimate of our fellow-creatures upon us; but people who die and come to life again must expect to learn some particularly painful facts. There's an Eastern proverb apposite to that, 'Nobody knows how good we are except ourselves'! No; for my part, since have this girl I must and will, I'm inclined now to take her by main force—to do something feudal and old-fashioned. Until she comes under my roof and finds all that she is losing, she will never get sense. And then—stolen fruit! Consider the charm of it to an epicure like myself."
"I'll do anything woman can do for money," answered Mrs. Lee. "My grandson an' me bide in a ruined shepherd's cot beyond Sittaford. Us have made it watertight; but 'tis plaguey cold, an' I'm sick of it. Change my money an' add a bit to it, an' I'll help 'e with that girl afore I go to France. I always knowed 'twould be my lot to help you."
"We ought to use your nephew. She would trust him."
"Ess, she do. If you want her here, Jack Lee's the properest tool to use. I can fox him with a word an' make him help us without knowing what he's doing."