When Reddin went in, Sally was gone, and Hazel, much as usual, ministered to his comfort. The only signs of the recent tumult were the constrained silence and the array of cups and plates. 'You'd better understand once and for all,' he said at last, 'that I'll never have that woman here.' 'Not if I went?' 'Never! I'd kill her first.' 'What for did you tell me lies?' 'Because you were so pretty and I wanted you.' The flattery fell on deaf ears. 'Them chillun's terrible ugly,' said Hazel wearily. Reddin came over to her. 'But yours'll be pretty!' he said. 'Dunna come nigh me!' cried Hazel fiercely. 'She says I'm going to have a little 'un! It was a sneak's trick, that; and you're a cruel beast, Jack Reddin, to burn my bees and kill the rabbits and make me have a little 'un unbeknown.' 'But it's what all women expect!' 'You'd ought to have told me. She says it's mortal pain to have a baby, and I'm feared--I'm feared!' 'Hazel,' he said humbly, 'I may as well tell you now that I mean to marry you. The parson must divorce you. Then we'll be married. And I'll turn over a new leaf.' 'I'll ne'er marry you!' said Hazel, 'not till Doom breaks. I dunna like you. I like Ed'ard. And if I mun have a baby, I'd lief it was like Ed'ard, and not like you.' With that she went out of the room, and he noticed that she was wearing the dress she had come in, and not the silk. He sat by the fire, brooding; but at last managed to cheer himself by the thought that she would get over it in time. She was naturally upset by Sally just now. 'And, of course, the parson'll never take her back, nor her father,' he reflected. 'Yes, it'll all come right.' He was upheld in this by the fact that Hazel's manner next day was much as usual, only rather quiet. Chapter 33 It was the night of the great storm. Undern rattled and groaned; its fireless chimneys roared, and doors in unused passages banged so often that the house took on an air of being inhabited. It seemed as if all the people that had ever lived here had come back, ignoring in their mournful dignity of eternal death these momentary wraiths of life. Hazel had always been afraid of the place, and had sat up until Reddin wanted to go to bed, so that she need not traverse the long passages alone. But to-night she was afraid of Reddin also--not just a little afraid, as she had always been, but full of unreasoning terror.