"How long's what to go on?" asked Jeckie.
"All this tewin' and toilin' and scrattin' after brass?" he said, with a half-amused, half-cynical laugh. "You've been at it a good while now, and you've about done what ye set out to do. Grice'll none keep his shutters up much longer. They say his takings have fallen to naught."
"I know they have," assented Jeckie with a flash of her keen eyes. "He's scarce any trade left."
"Aye, and you have it all, and I'll lay aught you've already made a nice little fortune for yourself!" continued Stubley. "So—why go on? What's the use of wasting your life, a handsome woman like you? There's something else in life than all this money-making, you know, lass. Sell your business—and live a bit!"
"Live a bit?" she said. "I—I don't know what you mean?"
Stubley waved his hand towards the window. There was a beautiful and well-kept garden outside, and beyond it a wide stretch of equally well-kept land. And Jeckie knew what the gesture meant.
"You know me," he said quietly. "Here's t'best farm-house and t'best farm in all this countryside. There's naught wanting here, mi lass—it's plenty ... and peace. And there's no mistress to it, and naught to follow me, neither lad nor lass. Say the word, and get rid o' yon shop, and I'll marry you whenever you like. And—you'd never regret it."
Jeckie stood up, trembling in spite of her strength. She thought of the hard, grinding, sordid, unlovely life which she was living in the pursuit of money, and then of what might be as mistress of that fine old farm and wife of an honest, good-natured, dependable man. But as she thought, recollection came back to her—a recollection which was with her day and night. She saw herself standing in the empty, stockless fold at Applecroft, watching George Grice drive away, deaf to her entreaties for help. The old demon of hatred and determination for revenge, and the lust for money and power which had sprung from his workings, rose up again and conquered her.
"No," she said, turning away. "I can't! I'm obliged to you, Mr. Stubley—you're a straight man, and you mean well. But—I can't do it! I've set myself to a certain thing, and I must go on—I can't stop now!"
"What certain thing, mi lass?" asked Stubley. "What're you aimin' at?"