"Nay, Leo, you mustn't speak to me like that, when I've followed you, mile on mile, across the desolate places. Will you never learn what a true woman's love means?" Janet winced cruelly. Roddick's eyes blazed as he watched the delicate girl shrink from this evil hag who was yet his wife. "How often must I tell you to stay where you are bidden?" The effort to keep his hands off was trying him sorely. "I can't obey when I'm drunk, Leo--I can't. I go wild for you, I---- Who's the white girl standing there?" "Janet, go, I tell you! Go!" She shook off the numbness that held her. "I can't, I won't, leave you! Leo, are not your battles mine? How can I leave you to face--that?" "Why didn't we let the dog do its work?" muttered Roddick. Janet caught the words and gripped him by the arm. "No, no--not that, Leo. That is what I meant--you will kill her if I leave you, and we should lose our chance of happiness, you and I, for ever. Oh, can't you see it? You who shook the breath out of my body because I asked you to take me away." The creature glared from one to another and tried to speak, but Roddick checked her roughly. "It is better to run away than commit murder," went on the girl, with eager persistence. "Will nothing make you understand, Leo?" He pulled himself together. "It is well to do neither, child. You can trust me." "Will you swear to do--that thing--no harm?" "Yes, I swear it. Now go." She hesitated, glanced at the bundle of rags, then held up her face. He kissed it gravely. "That is our protest, dear," she said. He watched her out of sight. He turned to the wife of his bosom. "Come along, you devil!" he said dispassionately. Together they set off across the moor. Roddick laughed harshly from time to time. CHAPTER XV. A HOME-COMING. The mistal at the rear of Gabriel Hirst's house was noisy, this May evening, with the clatter of milking-pails, the mooing of cattle in their stalls, and the semi-audible running comments of Jose Binns. Jose, it will be remembered, in addition to looking after the chapel and giving sound advice to the preacher, was Gabriel's right hand in the management of the farm. Now the Ling Crag folk were keen as nails in their bargainings with the Almighty, and they were just as keen in their conduct of more carnal transactions. Jose Binns, indeed, had a really remarkable aptitude for trafficking of both sorts; it was his favourite occupation, while milking or engaged in any other work that left his thoughts free, to drive imaginary bargains with non-existent purchasers touching property which was not his to sell. This was his substitute for the reading of fiction, and it certainly betokened a higher order of intelligence than that of the merely practical man who chaffers with realities.