"You came in search of white heath? Our blood runs red up here, and so does the heather. It was a wild-goose chase at best," said Griff, deliberately, with a meaning she could not fail to catch.
Still she would not give in. It had become her life, this yearning for the love she had trifled away.
"Griff, you don't, you can't mean to be so brutal! When are you coming to live in town again? You are more yourself there."
"Never," said Griff, bluntly.
She laid one hand on his sleeve.
"Griff, dear, haven't you a little—just a little—consideration for us poor wretches who happen to be—to be fond of you? It is a sin to hide yourself among these barren moors."
Still he felt no twinge of pity—only the goad of past weakness.
"It is a sin to seek at times, Sybil. You have told me as much—often. You were so very good that you shamed me into virtue, and sent me up here out of the reach of temptation; why do you not let well alone?"
The irony in his voice made her wince. She turned and moved away from him, into the whirling mist. The first suggestion of pity touched him.
"Don't go like this," he said, more gently. "Let us part friends, for old times' sake."