"You're a fool," said Roddick, gruffly, and shut the door with a bang.--"Why the devil won't Lomax let my secret alone?" he muttered, stirring up the fire in his parlour. "Jove, though, I fancied for the moment that Frender's Folly was his destination; Janet might care for a man of Lomax's build--the Lord knows why she picked _me_ out from the crowd--and that's just the rub of it all. Oh, my God, if only I were free!" After that evening Roddick learnt a good deal about Kate Strangeways--or, at any rate, about Griff's conception of her. He was an astute man where other people's follies were concerned, and he could have told Lomax that the adventure was bound to end in one of two ways. "He wouldn't believe me, so where is the use of telling him?" Roddick argued. "For a clever man, old Lomax is pretty blind--yes, a confounded ass whenever a woman is toward. This is biting deeper than he'll like, though, when he comes to open his eyes; it's not the trashy stuff he called love while the Ogilvie woman had him in tow. Well, I'll wait; there'll be a cheerful blow-up one of these days." But neither Griff nor the old lady of the Manor thought of coming evil. They walked far and wide by day, and at night they chatted of old times, of new endeavours, by the parlour fire. The itch for work, too, was taking a surer hold of Griff, and he was well satisfied with the progress of his picture. Autumn had long ago failed to winter, and the moors were looking their best; the heather had lost its gaudy raiment of purple, and stretched away in patches of rusty brown, of sober red, that fitted better with its savage dignity. Overhead, on the fine days, were wonderful shifting tints of sapphire and clear-cut green, with sunsets that stretched, purple and crimson, along half the horizon edge; then, again, the wind would shift to rain, and the sullen banks of yellow would come crowding across the sky from over Ling Crag, and the tremor and stress of storm would sweep into the man's heart. And all the while the woman across the moor grew dearer to him; she was part and parcel of the heath he loved, the sunsets that fired him to endeavour, the wind that made him drunker than wine could ever do. If he failed to look at the situation squarely, it was because Kate was always there, to be seen whenever the wish moved him; had a rival stepped in, or had she left Marshcotes for a space, Griff would better have understood it all.