The divorce suit was the talk of the artistic sets in London that winter. Griff's society friends chattered about it; the little people who had fumed at his success laughed stridently at his fall. "Mr. Lomax," purred Belgravia. "Griff Lomax, you know. Of course you have heard? Isn't it _shocking_? To think that a man of his genius should stoop to an intrigue with a low quarryman's wife!" "Kissing an' sich; it's fair shameful," muttered Jose Binns to his cows. "Ye mark my words, beästies, there'll no gooid come on 't." But it was not a matter of the public to Griff Lomax. It was between the woman, the moors, and himself; and he saw full life before him. CHAPTER XIII. A MOONLIGHT INTRODUCTION. "Well?" growled Mother Strangeways, as her grandson pushed his way in between the rickety doorposts of Sorrowstones Spring. "Well, it's ower an' done wi', for sartin sure. Kate's gone off wi' Griff Lummax." The old hag toasted her claws at the red peat ashes and chuckled. "Gone wi' him, didst 'a say? Afore iver yon lawyer chap hed sent 'em his bits o' paper? They mun ha' getten it on their minds, an' proper, not to bide till th' law set 'em free." Joe shuffled uneasily towards the hearth. "I misdoubt it, mother; ay, I misdoubt it. Sure as there's a fooil aboon ground, it's young Lummax. He meäns to wed her, an' she'll live off th' fat o' th' land. It war just what they wanted, it war." "Tha'rt a bonny un, Joe, wi' thy dog i' th' manger ways," croaked the grandmother. "Tha'll be shut o' thy wife for gooid an' all, an' here tha'rt come whining 'cos Kate's made thee a free man." "But it war just what they wanted, it war," persisted Joe, doggedly. "Without ever a 'by your leave' comes Lummax to Teewit yester morn, an' cuddles an' kisses Kate, an' away they wend to Marshcotes Manor, same as if a man's wife war fair ony fowks's belonging but hisn what wedded her. Ay, an' th' mother took 'em in, too." "Joe, tha's been lang i' coming. Why didn't 'a slip across th' moor yestreen to tell a body?" "'Cos I war ower drunk, if tha wants to know." A long-tried sense of the efficacy of this excuse had made it almost a formula with Joe. She looked at him with a grin of good fellowship; yet under the grin was a touch of wistfulness, a weird, abortive echo of the yearning which had once centred itself round Joe's mother. "It taks a lot to bring thee to thy grandam, lad. Tha willun't wend a step out o' thy way to clap een on her, without tha's harder set to 't nor or'nary. Tha mud ha' getten drunk here, Joe, if tha'd fashed thyseln to come for 't," she finished, in a plaintive key. Joe's face cleared perceptibly. "Hast 'a getten owt to sup, mother?" Mother Strangeways scrambled to the cupboard, and took out a black bottle. "Rum, begow!" muttered the son. "Fetch us a mug, mother, an' let's be making a start."