'Bill,' said a girl, 'I have caught you sidling towards that stuck-up minx of a Marley, or, as she is pleased to call herself, Holwood. I know you want to make up to Miss Holwood because of her hundreds of pounds, and to be off with Susie Finch.'
'It is not so. I swear to you it is not so. You attack me because you are disappointed that Jack Rattenbury is not here.'
'It is an untruth, a wicked untruth. What care I for Jack Rattenbury? He is too saucy to speak to such as I—with all his learning he had of the curate.'
Then they passed away to patch up their lover's quarrel elsewhere.
Jack pressed to the window slit again.
And again he looked across the barn at Winefred, and once more their eyes met.
Her lips contracted, her brows knit, she started from the bench, and strode across the floor to the barn door.
He turned, thrust back the valve, and dashed away into the darkness.