A horrible and sinister sense of mystery seemed to hang over everything: the moon was struggling with clouds that continually overswept and swamped her, and even when she looked forth it was with no mild radiance, but as though coldly trying to pierce some cruel secret; white and dense the sea-fog overspread the marsh like a blanket, swaying even up to the village on the cliff and floating softly down its streets and around its old church in the big square graveyard. One could scarcely see a yard in front of one, and two men who came smartly up the hill and round the corner did not see Lucy as she hung over the wall peering down the road. “Pore Mrs. Wood, she’ll ’ave a job wi’ ’im to-night, she will!” said one with a laugh. “I often wonders whether she guesses the worst on ’im and just keeps dark on it for ’er pride’s sake.” “Ye never can tell wi’ folk,” said the other sagely. “The gals from the ’Arbour don’t often come up this way, and I don’t s’pose no one’d go for to tell ’er.” “Lord love ye, ye can’t never tell what nasty turn one woman’d do another,” declared Wilson. “Though I dare say she’d sooner put up wi’ it all than be rid on ’im, if the truth was known. It be past crediting what some women’ll look over in a man as they love.” He started, for he felt a touch on his arm in the mist, and looking round recognized Lucy. “I was thinkin’ p’r’aps ye might ha’ seen my ’usband down at the ’Arbour, Mr. Wilson,” said she in a thin, panting voice, that told of inner anguish bravely concealed. “’E ain’t come ’ome yet, and it be a nasty aitchy night.” The man turned away his eyes from her miserable, eager face and looked at his comrade. “Oh, don’t ye worrit, Mrs. Wood,” said the latter after a minute, during which the two looked blankly at one another. “Jerry be all right. We did see ’im down yonder, but ’e be wi’ a lot of ’em, and they’ll bring ’im ’ome, you can make sure.” Bring him home! The words had an ominous sound, and she did not dare ask more. She looked wistfully down the hill—or down as much of it as one could see in the damp, creeping atmosphere; the long, weary road across the lonely plain, with the sad swish of the waves coming nearer the further one went, till one reached the place where only white stones by the dyke’s side marked the way across the marsh to the harbour—it was all vividly present to her mind’s eye, and she knew it was no safe spot for a drunken man to cross in a thick fog. “’E might want to leave and come ’ome afore the others was ready,” she said in the same thin, high voice. “I’ve ’alf a mind to go ’long the road to meet ’im.” “Lord love ye, Mrs. Wood, ye mustn’t do no such thing,” said the man whom she had called Wilson, authoritatively. “The mist be as thick as mush on the marsh, and it wouldn’t be safe. Your man be all right. The boys wouldn’t never leave ’im—I know.”