"You!"
"Yes--for reasons I can't fathom. Either that, or she've got some deep matter on her mind that keeps her more than common silent. With David away the nights be cruel. Sometimes 'tis all I can do to help crying out and begging her, for pity, to open her mouth. I get off to bed so soon as I can; and so like as not, when I'm gone up, she'll go abroad again and keep out, Lord knows where, till long after midnight."
"I don't call it respectable," said Bartley, shaking his head with pretence of disapproval. "I really don't, Madge. I wish I could meet her on one of these moony walks. Perhaps she'd listen to reason then--if she didn't set her pack of dogs on me!"
"'Tis hard to live so close to a fellow-creature and understand her so little."
"I understand her well enough--if she'd only believe it," he said.
For a moment they lapsed into silence. Then he plucked a long grass-blade and began to tickle her ear. She shook her head and laughed. A bright thought came to her mind.
"I heard by letter from David this morning. The matter's settled. He'll be bailiff of the great breeding farm--everything under him--the actual head man under the master. I feel very proud about it, for it shows how high the people rate him."
"And well they may. You could trust him with the Bank of England. Never was such a dead straight, lofty-minded man in the world before."
"I like you to praise him. He thinks such a lot of you. He's even been at Rhoda about you too."
"What will she do if you go to Tavistock? I reckon 'tis the thought of that more than me, or anything else, is making her down on her luck."