'Mischievous!' Hazel flamed on him like a little thunderstorm. 'Mischievous! And who made 'em mischievous, I'd like to know? They didna make theirselves.' 'God made them,' Edward said simply. 'What for did He, if He didna like 'em when they were done?' 'We can't know all His reasons; He walks in darkness.' 'Well, that's no manner of use to me and Foxy,' said Hazel practically. 'So all as I can see to do is to get married and take Foxy where there's no chicks.' 'So you think of marrying?' 'Ah! And I told father I'd marry the first as come. I swore it by the Mountain.' 'And who came?' Edward had a kind of faintness in his heart. 'Never a one.' 'Nobody at all?' 'Never a one.' 'And if anyone came and asked for you, you'd take him?' 'Well, I'm bound to, seemingly. But it dunna matter. None'll ever come. What for should they?' She herself answered her own question fully as she stood aureoled in dusky light. His eyes were eloquent, but she was too busy to notice them. 'And should you like to be married?' he asked gently. He expected a shy affirmative. He received a flat negative. 'My mam didna like it. And she said it'd be the end of going in the woods and all my gamesome days. And she said tears and torment, tears and torment was the married lot. And she said, "Keep yourself to yourself. You wunna made for marrying any more than me. Eat in company, but sleep alone"--that's what she said, Mr. Marston.' Edward was so startled at this unhesitating frankness that he said nothing. But he silently buried several sweet hopes that had been pushing up like folded hyacinths for a week. The old madness was upon him, but it was a larger, more spiritual madness than Reddin's, as the sky is larger and more ethereal than the clouds that obscure it. He was always accustomed to think more of giving than receiving, so now he concentrated himself on what he could do for Hazel. He felt that her beauty would be an ample return for anything he could do as her husband to make her happy. If she would confide in him, demands on his time, run to him for refuge, he felt that he could ask no more of life. The strength of the ancient laws of earth was as yet hidden from him. He did not know the fierceness of the conflict in which he was engaging for Hazel's sake--the world-old conflict between sex and altruism. If he had known, he would still not have hesitated. Suddenly Hazel looked round with an affrighted air. 'It's late to be here,' she said. 'Why?' 'There's harm here if you bide late. The jeath pack's about here in the twilight, so they do say.' They looked up into the dark steeps, and the future seemed to lower on them. 'Maybe summat bad'll come to us in this spinney,' she whispered. 'Nothing bad can come to you when you are in God's keeping.' There canna be many folk in His keeping, then.' 'Do you say your prayers, Hazel?' he asked rather sadly. 'Ah! I say: