Kate was going in at the door of Gorsthwaite as he came up. She turned and smiled a welcome on him.
"It's long since you've been here, Mr. Hirst," she said. "Will you come in and wait for Griff? He has gone to the Manor for the afternoon."
The preacher stood dumbfounded. He had had the one simple plan in his head, and this deviation from the settled order of things left him witless. Kate decided that he had been wrestling with the devil on an empty stomach, and pitied him.
"I—I'll not come in," he stammered at last. "I'll—walk back—to Marshcotes. I may meet him on the way."
"I can't promise that you will. Sometimes he stays late—but you'll find him at the Manor, if you are anxious to see him."
"Yes, I'm anxious—anxious; that is just it," he muttered.
The preacher turned and set off towards the village. He passed a wide-lipped tarn that lay in the valley between Gorsthwaite and Marshcotes Moor, and stared at its sulky waters; he hesitated awhile, then passed on. Another mile brought him to a disused shaft—Whins Quarry, it was called—and a look that was almost of joy came into his face as he peered over the fifty feet of rock-face, down to the pool that swallowed up the old cart-track on the far side.
"I can't face other folk—his mother, say. I'll just wait here till he comes," muttered Gabriel.
The sun crept lower, and still Gabriel lay among the heather. The sun went to bed, and the long summer twilight drew to its close; still the preacher waited. A four days' moon showed in the paling sky—a mere wisp of yellowish light, that served, for all that, to make some sort of atonement for the vanished day. A light-hearted song came drifting across the quiet moor. Gabriel Hirst leaped to his feet. A quick thought seized him; he raised his head proudly, as if he were looking God straight between the eyes.
"Vengeance is Thine, O Lord!" he cried. "But Thou knowest I am the fulfiller of Thy desire."