"There is no need at all—"
"No need, I know; but all the same it would be a pleasure to me to see you safely there and back."
She hurried on without speaking. If there had been any light, and he had dared to peep inside the black sun-bonnet, he might perhaps have found the hint of a smile overlaying her anxiety on Grannie's account.
By the ampler feel of things, and the easing of the slope, he knew they were out of the cutting, and presently they were passing Plaisance.
"If you would sooner I did not walk with you, I will fall behind; but I couldn't stop here and think of you going on alone," he said.
"That would be foolishness," she said gently. "But there is really no need. I have no fears of ghosts or anything like that."
"There might be other kinds of spirits about," he said quietly. "And when men drink as some of my fellows do, they are no respecters of persons. But this is surely very sudden. Your grandmother seemed all right at dinner-time."
"She had bad pains in the afternoon, and they have been getting worse. She did not want to have the doctor, but the things she took did her no good, and mother said I had better go and ask him for something more."
"And where is Bernel?"
"He went to the fishing with Billy Mollet, and he was not back."