"I don't know. He won't talk about it. He's very careful of hisself, and he gets a bit short if I run on about it; so we've agreed to let the matter drop. All the same it's aged him, and God knows how many years it has took off my life."
Mr. Crocker was interested.
"I only heard about it from David. There may be some sort of explanation."
"How can there be? 'Tis like a thunderbolt hung over us. Bart's the only one who takes no account of it."
"It might be him just so likely as his father," said the man. "Why are you so positive 'twas your husband the voice meant? They're both called 'Bartholomew.'"
Mrs. Stanbury stood still, stared at him, and then sank down suddenly in the hedge.
"But--but that can't surely be? The one's 'Bart' always," she gasped out.
"To other people; but if this was some magic thing from another world, you couldn't expect it to care about nicknames."
"Oh, my God! where do we all stand now?" cried out Mrs. Stanbury. "Nobody ever thought of that afore!"
"One person did, if not others; and that person's Jane West," he answered. "I saw her a bit ago and asked her--out of kindness to Bart--why she held off and didn't take him. I know only too well what 'tis to be hanging about with your heart telling you not to take 'no' for an answer and your head telling you that you're a fool. And Jane said that, so far as it went, she'd decided between Mattacott and Stanbury. 'But,' she said, 'though I'm addicted to Bart and like him very well, 'tis no use taking the man if he'm going to die afore next Christmas.' 'Twas only by the merest chance she and Bart didn't hear the voice themselves, for they went up to Princetown shopping that very afternoon, and nothing but the fog made 'em go round by road."