"Didn't I say you were a woman of sound sense?" said Griff, with barefaced disregard of his first statement. "You're jolly fond of me, too, Betty, under all that bluster of yours." Betty raised a rolling-pin from the table, and pursued her tormentor as far as the kitchen door. "And, Betty, as you love me," he said, by way of a last Parthian shot, "make a couple of rounds of buttered toast. You will, won't you?" "I'll lay this about your lugs," retorted Betty, brandishing her weapon, "if ye're not off in a brace o' shakes." Gabriel Hirst was standing by the window when Griff returned. "Well, what have you been doing?" he demanded. "Oh, nothing. I felt a bit hungry after the walk from Marshcotes, and I asked Mrs. Binns to boil four eggs." "I thought you'd had breakfast, or I should have offered it long ago." "I have had one, but I intend to tackle another. Two eggs for me, two for you; a round of toast each. Your Betty Binns isn't half the sport she was, Gabriel; she gives in like a lamb." "He's a gooid for naught, is Griff Lummax," muttered Betty, as she cut the bread and held it before the fire; "but there's summat I like about him; ay, I willun't deny 'at he hes a way wi' him." Gabriel made a last stand when the eggs were set down before him with a clatter. "You don't know, Griff, how religion takes a man; he wants to be always subduing, subduing, and it's a fearful sin to pamper the carnal body." "Fiddlesticks! You look after your body, and the Lord will look after your soul; play the fool with your body a year or two longer, and you'll begin to wonder whether you have a soul at all." "But, Griff--John the Baptist lived on locusts and wild honey, and----" "You're not John, though, and you happen to have some one to look after you. Chip that egg." Gabriel obeyed meekly, though he sorely doubted Griff's way of putting things. He ate with a relish, however, and at the end of it Lomax got to the real subject in hand. "What about this girl? Who is she?" he asked abruptly. The preacher flushed. "All last night I was dreaming of her, and that was why I slept so quietly: I forgot that it was the flesh, and we went over the moor together till we got to the Thorntop road. She was more like a spirit than a woman, and her eyes were as quiet and deep and far away as the stars. I whispered, 'Greta,' and she took my head to her breast, and 'Hush!' she said; 'the fight is over and done with, and the reward is here.' Griff, man, it's hard, hard, coming back to the sin." Griff watched him curiously. The innocence of this broad-shouldered man, his childish outspokenness--he could not tell whether more to pity or admire them. "Greta? It doesn't sound like one of the names hereabouts. Who is she, Gabriel?" "Greta Rotherson. She lives at the corn-mill in Hazel Dene." "What? Is some one running the old mill again? It was standing when I left here last year."