Sam was genuinely fond of Senath, and mingled with his fondness was a certain pride at having won what he had set out to win so many years ago; yet, it was so many years that he had been in a fair way to forget all about it till, one evening, he met Senath as he was driving home from market, much as when he had been with Manuel a year before. It had struck him as odd, for Senath was not apt to be upon the highway at that time, and although she was going in an opposite direction she asked for a lift back in his gig. When they came to the track that led off to her cottage, he tied up the mare and went with her to advise her as to her apple-trees, which were suffering from blight, and by the time he left, half an hour later, they were promised to each other. How it came about, Sam never quite understood; the only thing he was sure about was that it had been entirely his doing. Yet he couldn't help wondering a bit, though it all seemed to follow on so naturally at the time, that it was not until he was on his way back to the Upper Farm that he felt puzzled. He was still wondering about it, and her, when the parson joined their hands in the bleak, cold church, and Senath stood, beneath her unbecoming daisied hat, looking as bleak and cold as the granite walls around her. Later, Sam found this to be a misleading impression. Never was bride more responsive, in the eager passive fashion of shut eyes and quiet, still mouth, than was Senath. Only now and again, in the first weeks of their life together, she would give a start, and a look of terror and blank amazement would leap across her face, as though she were suddenly awakened out of a trance. Men of Sam's condition and habit of mind do not, by some merciful law of nature, make ardent lovers, and life soon settled down comfortably enough on the farm. Senath was a capable housewife, and, what with the dairy-work and cooking and superintending the washing, and such extra work as looking after any sickly lamb or calf, she had plenty to do. And yet, in the midst of so much activity, every now and then Sam was struck by a queer little feeling of aloofness in Senath--not any withdrawing physically, but a feeling as though her mind were elsewhere. He might find her sitting on the settle with her eyes closed, although she was obviously awake, and an expression of half-fearful joy on her face, as on that of a person who is listening to some lovely sound and holding his breath for fear lest the least noise on his own part should frighten it into stillness.