"He is not in his senses, Gabriel." "Likely not, poor chap. He's had enough to turn any man's head. But I never dreamed it would take him like this--he might be off to his wedding. Greta, lass, you must never leave me as Griff's wife left him." Instinctively his arms went round her--to protect her even against God; and old Jose Binns, coming round at that moment from the lathe, set his mouth to a cynical shape. "Kissing an' cuddling," muttered Joe. "Nay, there's no mak o' gooid can come o' yon." The hard weather had driven grouse and plover alike to tameness. They walked up and down the streets of Marshcotes, and perched on the window-sills in search of crumbs, and looked at passers-by in the light of old foes turned allies. A mirthless old cock grouse, and a drabbled hen, sat on the Manor wall as Griff came up, and made their plaints to him; but the cock-bird's call had none of that noisy self-assurance about it which had startled Griff many a time in the darkness of the moors. The same tenderness that had prompted his pity for Laverack's horse bade him go to the baker's at the corner and buy a quartern loaf. He took the bread with him into the Manor garden and crumbled it on the doorstep. It was an act his father would have applauded, he thought. He stood for awhile, looking at the grey old walls with eyes that saw only the past. But the sharp stab of the present took him unawares, and blinded his eyes with tears. He turned, knowing himself for evermore an outcast. The reaction came on apace, as he crossed the churchyard and struck into the moor. He had an old man's look, an old man's droop of the shoulders. He began to mutter as he walked, in a disjointed, senile way. The clear conception of duty, the needlessness of self-excuse, were fast disappearing; he had to explain to himself _why_ his course had been the right one. "No one can say I have wasted my life now. But for me, she might have lived for years; and Roddick and the girl would have grown old in misery. So easy, too: it wasn't as if I killed her; she did it herself. Strange--to watch her drink and drink--her head falling lower--how could any sane man have stopped her? Just a bit of filthy clay she was, standing between Roddick and his heart's desire. Roddick, old man, you are free of your love at last; may she stick to your side longer than---- God, how still the moor is! Why doesn't it blow and rain and hail, in the good moor way? Nothing but snow, and snow on the top of that, with mile on mile of that devilish, everlasting sun-shimmer." He stopped and gazed fearfully across the waste. It seemed that even the moor-face, his friend, had hid itself in anger at his deed. He was homeless altogether. His hands clawed fitfully through the air. "What's that whisper going abroad? _Murder._ No, no; merely a drinking bout, and a good riddance. I must be the first to tell Roddick. It seems further to Wynyates than it used to do."