"Yes; I am to leave to-morrow, to return when—we are free."
"Well, Griff?"
"You are a brick! To treat Kate as you have done——"
"Be quiet, boy! You are either the wisest man in the world, or the veriest fool. I love Kate; so do you. We can only wait and see how it all turns out. Are you coming to bed, too?"
"Not just yet. I must have a mouthful of fresh air before I turn in."
He held open the door for her, and they walked upstairs together, his arm threaded through hers.
"Good night, mother," he said, as they gained the landing; "don't worry about things, will you?"
"Not too much, Griff; I am a woman of sound common sense. Good night."
He went downstairs again, picked up a cap from the hall table, and went out. He was restless to the point of fever, and nothing but the sharp night air and the free use of his limbs could give him a wink of sleep that night. Swinging off into the Marshcotes Moor, he speedily found himself at the farm that fronted Hazel Dene; then, bethinking him of that parsley-field which had so mystified Miller Rotherson, and remembering, as a natural corollary, certain of the poaching fraternity of Ling Crag, he turned up the Dene. A light was burning in Greta's room as he passed the mill, and he glanced up at it with a warm splash of feeling at his heart.
"Poor lassie!" he muttered. "I wonder how soon that witless preacher will get at a pretty woman's meaning?"