'What is money to me? It grows, it forces itself on me, and I know not what to do with it. I can throw it away to free myself of the trash and more comes. It comes faster than I can use it; faster than I can cast it away. Now, girl—Cheap Jack girl—now you know what a fen-farm is. Now you see what a fen-tiger can do. You remain at Prickwillow with me. I will shelter you, feed you, clothe you, care for you. Eat, drink, sleep, laugh, and play. Work a little. All is given to you ungrudgingly.' He put the flail to his knee and endeavoured to break it, but failed. Then he cast it into the corner of the room, where was a collection of whips, sticks, and tools. 'There,' said he, 'all I ask is—not a word about my having been on the embankment. Not a word about the flail—least of all to Runham. I have my reasons, which you do not understand, and which you need not know.' Zita hesitated. She had not expected such an offer. She doubted whether she could contentedly settle into farm life. 'You were about to leave,' continued Drownlands, 'or rather to try to leave. But how could that horse of yours draw the van out of the Fens? You know how it was when you came this way. The wheels sank, and the horse was powerless. I sent my team, and only so could we draw the van along. Never, unassisted, could you reach Littleport or Ely, not, at all events, in winter. When you got into the drove the wheels would sink again, and I should send my team and drag the van back here once more. You have got your feet into the peat earth and clay, and are held fast. Listen to me. Supposing you did get a little way and then stick, and I were angry at your departure, and refused to come to your aid and draw you back to Prickwillow, what then? Let me tell you what would happen were you left out all night unprotected, sunk to the axle in the fen. There are slodgers in the fen; there are tigers, as they call them here—plenty round Littleport. That story of the sale of the flails is spread and talked about. It is known that you have money. It is known that your father is dead. Do you think there are not men who, for the sake of what money you have, would not scruple to steal on you in the dark, to come up like rats out of the dykes, like foxes from the holes, and take your money, and nip that brown throat of yours to prevent peaching? If you think there are not, then you think differently of the Fens and the fen-men than do I who have lived in the Fens and among the tigers all my days. Come'— He put his hand to her throat and pinched it. 'This, and your body found in a drain, black in fen-water, of a morning. This on one side; on the other, my offer of a home, protection—everything.' Zita withdrew from his grasp with a shudder. 'I accept your offer,' she said; 'I can do no other. There is no choice in the matter.' 'You are right there,' said he, with a laugh. 'To you there is no choice.' CHAPTER X RED WINGS