Hazel went out with awkward haste, and Mrs. Marston followed, having mouthed incomprehensible comfort to Edward. He went on stumblingly with the service. Reddin, realizing that he had been femininely outwitted, smiled. Edward wondered who this distinguished-looking man with the merciless mouth might be. He thought the smile was one of amusement at his expense. But Reddin was summing him up with a good deal of respect. Here was a man who would need reckoning with. 'The parson's got a temper,' he reflected, looking at him keenly, 'and, by the Lord, I'm going to rouse it!' He smiled again as he always did when breaking horses. He got up suddenly and went out. Mrs. Marston, administering raspberry cordial in the parlour, heard him knock, and went to the front door. 'Can I help?' he asked in his pleasantest manner. 'A doctor or anything?' Mrs. Marston laughed softly. She liked young men, and thought Reddin 'a nice lad,' for all his forty years. She liked his air of breeding as he stood cap in hand awaiting orders. Above all, she was curious. 'No thank you,' she said. 'But come in, all the same. It's very kind of you. And such a hot day! But it's very pleasant in the parlour. And you'll have a drink of something cool. Now what shall it be?' 'Sherry,' he said, with his eyes on Hazel's. 'I misdoubt if there's any of the Christmas-pudding bottle left, but I'll go and see,' she said, all in a flutter. How tragic a thing for her, who prided herself on her housewifery, to have no sherry when it was asked for! Her steps died away down the cellar stairs. 'So you thought you'd outwitted me?' he said. 'Now you know I've not tamed horses all my life for nothing.' 'Leave me be.' 'You don't want me to.' 'Ah! I do.' 'After I've come all these miles and miles to see you, day after day?' 'I dunna care how many miles you've acome,' said Hazel passionately; 'what for do you do it? Go back to the dark house where you come from, and leave me be!' Reddin dropped his pathos. She was sitting on the horsehair sofa, he in an armchair at its head. He flung out one arm and pulled her back so that her head struck the mahogany frame of the sofa. 'None of that!' he said. He kissed her wildly, and in the kisses repaid himself for all his waiting in the past few weeks. She was crying from the pain of the bump; his kisses hurt her; his shoulder was hard against her breast. She was shaken by strange tremors. She struck him with her clenched hand. He laughed. 'Will you behave yourself? Will you do what I tell you?' he asked. 'I'd be much obleeged,' she said faintly, 'if you'd draw your shoulder off a bit.' Something in the request touched him. He sat quite silent for a time in Edward's armchair and they looked at one another in a haunted immobility. Reddin was sorry for his violence, but would not say so. Then they heard Mrs. Marston's slide, and she entered with a large decanter.