“Nay, and why should it, I’d like to know!” she exclaimed. “You should think shame o’ yourself for suchlike selfish talk.” There was something desperate in her glance at the hedge on either side, as if the fences were hung with the net that would not let her through. From them she looked once more at Thomas, turning slowly on his heel, and slowly beginning at last to see his way.... “I’d wed him myself and work for him sooner than that!” “I reckon there’s nowt agen you wedding me instead.” “Nay, then, I can’t.... I’ve tell’t you.... I just can’t.” “Then he’ll be at Marget’s afore you can say knife.” They had changed places at last, as was clear to both; in the course of a few moments they had changed. At last he had found a way of blocking her escape, of putting a log in the path of her everlasting no. It was he who had the better hold now, and he did not mean to be stopped from winning the fall. He knew well enough that however hard she might be with a young man foolishly in love, she had the softest heart in the world for the weak and old. Perhaps he had no pride, as she said, but he meant to use his father’s cause to the full for the furthering of his own. He stood staring fixedly at her downcast head, and the old kindliness came back into his voice now that he saw his advantage clear. He put the whole case over to her again, but always with Marget looming largely at the end, and had the same satisfaction in the last effect. Agnes knew Bob’s wife as well as anybody else, and needed no enlightening as to her ways. His hopes rose and his face cleared as he saw the position he had cursed proving the door to his desire, and as his heart eased he became more eloquent, more tender, more difficult to resist. At the finish he gave her a rough picture of the lonely farm, and the fiddle singing into the night.... She yielded at last with wet eyes and a dismal shake of her drooped head. “Nay, then, we mun just put a stop to it, that’s all. We can’t let him gang to Marget, poor old chap! If you waint stir without me, I mun wed you and take the risk, but I doubt we’ll make a mess o’ things, you an’ me. It’s nobbut a middlin’ sort of a bargain when folks don’t both jump on the tick.” She looked up at him suddenly with a laugh that was more than half a wail. “Eh, Thomas, but baint there some other lass’d do as well?”