The sun crept lower, and still Gabriel lay among the heather. The sun went to bed, and the long summer twilight drew to its close; still the preacher waited. A four days' moon showed in the paling sky--a mere wisp of yellowish light, that served, for all that, to make some sort of atonement for the vanished day. A light-hearted song came drifting across the quiet moor. Gabriel Hirst leaped to his feet. A quick thought seized him; he raised his head proudly, as if he were looking God straight between the eyes. "Vengeance is Thine, O Lord!" he cried. "But Thou knowest I am the fulfiller of Thy desire." The song came clearer. Gabriel could hear the words now. "The fulfiller--O Lord of Heaven, give me strength!" he prayed. A figure swung into view and neared the quarry with easy strides. The preacher went to meet him. "Griff Lomax!" he called. "At your service; but who the deuce are you?" "Gabriel Hirst." "Of course you are. I ought to have known your voice anywhere. Have you come from Gorsthwaite?" "I've come to tell you that you are false--a liar and a thief." Griff took the preacher by the arm, but he shook it off. "Gabriel, you're out of your mind. What ails you, man?" "You thought it was safe to meet in Hazel Dene, before folk were out of their beds. You laughed to yourself often, I'll warrant, when I told you what store I set by Greta--and all the while you were----" His friend broke in with a hearty laugh. "Is that all? I knew you were a tolerable ass, old fellow; but I didn't credit you with going quite so far as this. The last time you turned jealous, you were very drunk; are you sober now? Why, the girl has eyes for none but you, and I've done all I can to plead your cause. This very morning I was telling her that we are soft at the core up here, though hard in the rind; and she said, with a pout in her voice, 'But you never confess it when people want you to.'" "She said that?" cried the preacher, hoarsely. "She did. You should know best what she meant, Gabriel." Again Griff laughed, and Hirst fancied the laugh was one of mockery. He had his settled view of that meeting by the stream, and Griff was assuredly taunting him with Greta's own avowed preference for his rival. "You're a liar, and I'll fight to prove it," he yelled, and leaped on his adversary. Despite ill-treatment of his body, the preacher was tough; but Lomax was the better man in a tussle. They were locked close together now, swaying this way and that. Griff, though, was not heated as Hirst was; he was conscious of the mistaken cause of fight and felt loth to do his mad friend a hurt; and Gabriel, consequently, had the better of it at the first. Then Griff roused himself; he hoisted the other well into the air and let him drop with a thud. "It's soft falling, Gabriel; lie there awhile till you're cool enough to listen to reason."