"Daniel——"
"I guess what you're going to say. He's not satisfied with things as they are. Well, leave that for the moment. He's safe enough. Safer and luckier than he knows."
"I wasn't thinking of that. I was thinking what he would say if he heard you."
"Don't tell him. Never make a man miserable for nothing. Another man couldn't understand me. But a woman can. You can, and you do. You're not angry with me. You couldn't be. You haven't the heart to be angry with me. Think what a poor wretch I am. I saw you once before you were married. I actually saw you up at Dunnagoat cottage. Saw you and went away and forgot it! 'Twas a sin to have seen you and forgotten you, Sarah Jane; but I'm terribly punished."
"What wild nonsense you tell whenever you meet me!"
"It was after that woman jilted me. I had no eyes then for anything or anybody. I was blind and you were hidden from me, though I looked into your face."
"Enough to make you hate all of us. She must have been a bad lot—also a proper fool."
They talked in a desultory manner and he spoke with great praise of her husband and promised fair things for the future. Then he returned to her and strove to be personal, and she kept him as much as possible to the general incidents of his visit to Kent. He told her of the cousins there, and described them, and explained how they were mere shadows compared with the reality of her. He spoke of the crops, of the orchards, strawberry-beds, osier-beds, and green hop-bines, whose fruit ripened to golden-green before the picking. But to return from the fertile garden to the stony wilderness was the work of a word; and before she could prevent it, Daniel's wife found herself again upon his lips.
Under White Hill he left her, and she went straight homeward, while he made a wide detour and rode into the farm near two hours later.
That day John Prout found his master vigorous and cheerful. He detailed the fact gladly, and they asked themselves why it was; but only Sarah Jane guessed, and she did not enlighten them.