He gave in at last, as he was bound to do; but, once the point was settled, there was ample room for other disturbing thoughts. Hannah put her head in at the door presently.
"Shall you be wanting owt more to-neet?" she demanded.
"No; you can go to bed. Good night, Hannah."
"Good neet, mum."
Hannah's tread on the upstairs journey was heavy; her downward steps, some few minutes later, were correspondingly light.
There was a silence between the two who were seated on either side of the great peat fire in the parlour. Lomax pulled at his pipe and stared into the glowing peat-ash; the woman watched his face. He grew conscious of her gaze, and turned his eyes suddenly to hers.
The months had been slow to teach him, but he learned their lesson now. As the seasons had run their course, the man's great love had been growing—growing so silently, so little at a time, that he had not once pulled himself up to say, "This is love that has you by the throat; thrust it off while you can." And now—now, all in the space of that quick uplifting of his eyes to hers, he had come to understand. Nothing he had felt, read of, dreamed about, was like this masterful reality; it hurried him along blindfold, as the welter and swing of a gale from the north had now and then driven him clean off the moor-track—into the bogland, it might be.
He leaped from his chair, and crossed over to her, and put his arms about her. She spoke no word, and he was silent; but her lips went out to his.
The reaction followed. He set her free, and strode restlessly up and down the room, with its black oak panels, its ridiculous china dogs on the mantelshelf, its fiery eye of smouldering ash. She followed his steps with her eyes, and cared not one whit save that he loved her.