'No, and never will.' He spoke with bitterness.
'You be changed, maister dear. I never seed you afore like as you be now. You look just about a score of years older than what you was once. Is it the Whiteface has done it, or what be it, maister darling? Tell your own Joyce, and see if her won't go through ice and snow to serve you any day, if her can.'
'You can do nothing for me.'
Still she looked at him, holding his hands, trying to read his secret in his face, with eyes full of earnestness. Then, suddenly, there came a revulsion in his thoughts.
'God forgive me for what I have said! You do nothing for me!—Joyce, dear Joyce, you have done for me this night more than you are aware of. You saved my life once before, you have saved my life again to-night, and something more than my life.'
She did not understand him. How could she?
'Maister,' she said, 'put thicky gashly old gun away; it frightens me.'
He rose at once and obeyed, putting the gun back in its old place on the crooks.
'You be coming back to West Wyke?' she asked.
'Yes, to-morrow.'