When the whisky had been brought in, with icy, beaded water from the well-spring just without the house door; when old Rotherson had allowed his guest to mix him a glass, and had entreated him, with a jovial twinkle, "not to drown the miller;" when Griff had helped himself to a liberal half-and-half, which the strength of his head warranted--it occurred to Lomax to effect a redistribution of seats. Gabriel, seeing him hovering vaguely on the outskirts of the hearthrug, at length divined that he had an opportunity of sitting beside the girl; he moved clumsily across the floor, and Greta frowned as she watched him. "I was at chapel on Sunday night," she observed. "So I saw. Did you--did you----" "Like your sermon?" she finished demurely. "I suppose I did, only--I was disappointed. You have such a reputation for--wildness--and I wanted to hear you really inspired." The miller caught her words. "Greta, don't be so forward with your tongue. It isn't fair to badger a man on a week-day about the work he does on Sunday." "But Mr. Hirst badgers people on a week-day, father, about the things they _don't_ do on Sunday. It's only tit for tat." "God knows I mean it for the best," muttered Gabriel, too low for any but Greta to hear. She glanced at him, and dropped her air of mockery. A softer light came into her grey eyes. Then again she looked across the hearth, and saw how at home the two men were with their pipes and glasses; and back her eyes travelled to the preacher, in his ill-cut clothes of black, glooming there with neither pipe in his mouth nor glass at his side, his hands sitting lonely on his knees. "If only he weren't such a _woman_," she murmured, and rose to bid them all good night. Gabriel sat in his corner, after she had gone, without word or motion. He felt like one who has sold his soul to the devil, and been cheated of his price at the end of it all. Where was the swift enthusiasm for the Word that had braced him to ten years of fervid preaching? Gone. Where was his feud with the flesh? Swallowed up in the depths of two grey eyes. What had he gained? Scorn that was harder to bear than sin, mockery which no wrestling with the Adversary had taught him how to parry. Griff, meanwhile, talked glibly to the miller, hoping to cover his friend's moroseness. "There is land attached to the mill yet? Do you farm it, as your predecessor did?" Old Rotherson smiled grimly. "Yes, I farm it--after a fashion. But it's sadly like trying to skin a flint, as the saying goes. You've a hard country up here, Mr. Lomax." "For grass, yes. But we're fine when it comes to growing heather."