"All's fair in love," I told her.
"I only love Nicky and I shall go to Meldon Quarry and not leave it again till he be found," she promised. "And don't tell Mr. Westaway, please. He'd be properly furious if he thought my dear husband wasn't drownded after all."
And at that moment if the miller's son didn't come along himself. A very tidy-looking chap, and a good worker, and a likely sort of man by all accounts. They left me and walked up the street together; and I heard afterwards what they talked about.
"How much longer are you going to hold off?" he asked. "You know I won't let you marry anybody on God's earth but me."
Jenny hid the great hopes in her mind, for she doubted if she could trust Will with the news.
"How can I marry anybody until I know Nicky is dead?" she inquired of the man, as she often had before.
"If he's alive, then that makes him a low-down villain, and you ought never to think of the creature again. If he's alive, he's happy without you. Happy without you—think of that! But of course he's not alive."
"Until we know the solemn, certain truth about him I'm for no other man," she told him; and her words seemed to give Will a notion.
"'The truth about him': that's an idea," he said.
"It is now a year since he went to fish and vanished off the earth," went on Jenny. "I've sometimes thought that the people didn't search half so carefully for the dear chap as what they might."