"And welcome," she answered.
"There's a moon and everything. I wish to God she'd let me go out walking in the dark with her afterwards."
"Perhaps she might. She took walks with Mr. Snell."
"Not by moonlight? No--no, 'tis all waste of time and hope and sense. But, good Lord! if she's so frosty under the summer sun, what must she be in moonlight? Freezing cold enough to make a man's heart stand still!"
"Perhaps 'tis all the other way and the dark hours soften her," suggested Margaret.
They rose and she brushed his back, which was covered with scraps of leaf and moss.
Presently they moved away together towards Coombeshead; and then from her lair in a brake fifty yards distant, Rhoda departed to return home. Their speech had been entirely hidden from her, but their actions were all observed; and their actions, unlit by the spirit that informed them, left her soul dark.
Mr. Crocker, on second thoughts, decided that he would not sup at 'Meavy Cot' until David came back, and Madge went her way alone after bringing large comfort and peace to Mrs. Stanbury. She was full of the incident when she came back to Rhoda, and gave her silent and sceptical listener the true account of the meeting by Meavy.
CHAPTER IX
DARKNESS AT 'THE CORNER HOUSE'