"You shan't--you shan't! No one need know. No one saw you. Perhaps he isn't dead, after all, Gabriel? You fell and lost your senses, you say. It may have been all a dream--a kind of nightmare--and you said there was no body to be seen. We will wait, and if"--she crept close and looked at him with horror-stricken eyes--"if an accident did happen, we must go away together, you and I--I shan't mind it a bit, dear; we will begin in a new country, and----" She had forgotten her father in the first wild panic for Gabriel's safety. "No, Greta. My way lies clear, and you can't turn me. First to tell his wife, and then to give myself up--it's as plain as can be." "And what of me?" cried the girl. "Don't you understand that there are two to reckon for now? For your own peace of mind you must go--but what of mine?" The tears rose in the preacher's eyes. "Lass, don't make it too hard to bear. I am not fit to claim you, and you'll be well rid of a scoundrel. Let me go, and have done with it." She put her arms round his neck, but he forced them away and went down the stairs. Without one backward look he left the house and struck up towards the moor; it was the hardest effort--save one--that he had made in all his life of conflict. He did not hear the footsteps that sounded behind him all the way up from the mill. As he gained the moor he started to feel a hand laid in his. Greta was nestling to his side. "Go back, go back, I tell you!" he cried. "Never, Gabriel. You thought it was a light thing to win a woman's heart? You thought I should stay safe indoors, while you went across the moor--in the darkness? If you must go to his wife, I go with you, and tell her the things you leave out of your story." He turned, desperately. It seemed that his every instinct towards the right was being frustrated. "Greta, haven't I enough to bear? Your shoulders are over young, lass, to take their share. Go back; and put me out of mind." For answer she took his hand and led him towards Gorsthwaite. He gave up the contest, suffering himself to be led. Together, in an awful quiet, they crossed the nodding sweep of heather. Late as it was, a light shone out from the old Hall. "She is waiting up; I knew how it would be," whispered the preacher. "Can you see her there, Greta, listening to the wind--starting up at each fresh sound--thinking her husband's come home at last? Can you see her face when she opens the door for us? Can you see her drop on the floor, as I blurt out the truth, never stopping to break it gently, for fear of going mad if I didn't get it over at once?" "Hush, dear, hush!" pleaded Greta. He was quiet for a space; then, "Vengeance is Thine, O Lord!" he cried. "Vengeance is Thine; only make me less of a coward for this one short while!" The back-thrust from his sense of failing purpose made him beat noisily on the door with his fists. From within they heard a man's shout-- "He's here! I knew he'd come."