“Well, we were busy, Richard; too busy to talk.” “And he was a common fellow, wasn’t he? it’s not to be expected you would have talked much to him? eh?” “He certainly wasn’t fine like you, Richard.” “Now how do you mean that? Too fine, am I? And he,--a poacher, wasn’t he? a bit of good-for-nothing? You don’t answer. A queer fellow, not without good looks; oh, I wouldn’t deny him that. A romantical sort of fellow, Clare?” “Practical as he could be, on the contrary.” “Maybe; none the less, there was something romantical about him....” So he tormented himself by this small constant nagging about Lovel, liking to dress the man’s personality up in the lyrical words of his own choosing; but for the rest he appeared satisfied, living with Clare a captive under his roof. But sometimes she eluded his company. Then he roamed about the house, up and down stairs, out at the front door, down to the little wicket gate in the new wall, holding his muffler close under his chin, for the wind tore at his coverings, tweaking his scarf, flapping his coat, freezing his fingers, blowing his grey hair about in wild strands. He stood at the little gate, vainly trying to smooth his hair, gazing round the expanse of the hills, and calling from time to time as loudly as he could call, “Clare!” The wind took his voice and dispersed it like smoke; instantly tattered, it streamed away on the wind. No hope that Clare should hear that futile call, and it seemed to him that the empty Downs must from her childhood onwards have accumulated the echoes of voices crying “Clare! Clare!” A bell-like and doleful name, so cried; a name made to ring out; a wailing appeal; a name to cry after a gay truant, knowing that no answer would be returned. A gay truant, marked out for tragedy, dancing away, while those who remained behind cried after her and broke their hearts. All his complacency dropped from him, he stood at the gate, looking and calling; then turning back to the house he sought her again in every room, even up to the attic where Phoebe Batch, startled at his intrusion and dishevelled appearance, gaped at her master and stammered out her, “No, sir,”--she had seen nothing of Mrs. Calladine. Mrs. Calladine! She was Clare, just Clare; Calladine with a bitter twist could not at that moment associate her with the respectable title. He turned away, downstairs again, and back to the front door, to stand on the doorstep, gazing across the little garden, over the low wall, up to the pale inhospitable hills.