The night after Bess’s meeting with Jeffray in the yew valley, Dan told his wife that he was going out after wild duck to the Holy Cross pools, and, shouldering his gun, left Bess alone to go to bed. The sky was clear, with a full moon swinging up in the east above the tangled boughs of the pines. Dan slipped away to old Isaac’s cottage with his black spaniel at his heels, and, keeping under the shadows of the orchard, knocked at the heavy door. A candle was burning in the lower room, the pewter and china, the brass work, and quaint furniture showing through the curtainless window. A figure rose up from an arm-chair before the fire, stopped a moment by the table to snuff the candle. Then the bolts were shot back, and Isaac’s white head came peering out into the moonlight. He had a lantern in one hand and a canvas-bag in the other, while with a keen glance at Dan he jerked his head in the direction of an out-house standing in the garden. “Get the pick and spade, lad.” Isaac slammed the door after him by the bobbin-cord, and waited by the garden-gate while Dan groped in the shed for the tools. Finding them at last, he swung the spade and pick over one shoulder, and carried the gun sloped over the other. They set off together in the moonlight and took a southward path that plunged into the deeps of Pevensel. Bess was creaming the milk in the little dairy next morning when Dan came in to her, grinning and looking good-humored. His clumsy shoes were foul with muck from the byre, his shirt open, showing his hairy chest. He hugged Bess, flattening his coarse lips on her cheek, the girl taking the kiss with dull-eyed self-restraint. “I’ve got a present for ye, Bess.” The wife kept her color and looked calmly at her husband. “Ay, and a purty one. You shall be giving me three smacks for it. Come, fetch a glimpse.” He fumbled in his pocket, his eyes fixed the while on the girl’s face. Bess saw a scrap of gold in his palm, green stones shining like a dog’s eyes in the light. Dan chuckled, his hairy and sweating chest heaving. He held the brooch out to her. “There’s a purty bauble! A flash bit of stuff! How be you liking it, Bess?” She took it from Dan’s palm, and, as by instinct, pinned it on the red handkerchief that covered her bosom. The man’s clumsy courting reminded her by contrast of Richard Jeffray. She hated her husband’s sweating bulk and the stare of his eyes. “I like it well enough, Dan,” she said. “Now don’t you be for asking questions. Give me the kisses, wench. Lud, but I like ye; I like every limb and tooth of ye, Bess.” Dan kissed her twice, though she shuddered as his hairy arms crushed her against his chest. When Dan had gone she shook her clothes as though to rid them of the scent of him, and dashed water from the pump into her face. Then she took the brooch, and, standing before the lattice-window with the great beams dark overhead, gazed at it a long while, holding it in the hollow of her hand.