he had touched the apex of his conquest over himself and his country, and, relaxing, he considered with a grin the superstitious amazement of his fellow-villagers should they, passing below, chance to see upon the skyline the naked figure of Lovel (whom they had always known for a wizard) crucified against elements where horse and man might scarcely hope to live. He had his reward when the storm ceased, and, again alone upon the heights, he surveyed, as though his will alone had imposed the calm, the thick smooth quilt of snow and the blood-red sun descending towards the beech-clump through the perfect stillness. But in the direction of Starvecrow he never wandered, where Calladine edged with some rare book closer to the fire, and Clare stood with her face against the panes staring out of the window over the snowy Downs. Daisy began now to cling to him more and more. Her child was nearly due, but since she alone knew this,--and perhaps young Gorwyn, if he took the trouble to reckon up the dates,--every one believed the birth to be distant yet another month. Daisy was frightened; she dared not tell Lovel that the child might now be born any day; but she dreaded his long absences, for she feared that she might die without making her confession or obtaining his forgiveness. If all went well, she had no intention of confessing; but if she saw her life in any danger she had made up her mind to barter the security of this life against that of the next. Superstitious, she imagined that she would run more danger through bearing this child that she had carried during the months of deception and fraud, than she would through bearing a child honestly conceived and carried. She was mortally afraid of death, and mortally afraid of losing Lovel. She tried to sound him, “You’d be sorry if anything happened to me, Nicco?” Lovel had heard this a dozen times already. “Why should anything happen to you?” he replied. “I shouldn’t have gone with Olver,” she mumbled, twisting the corner of her skirt. “That’s a long time ago,--that’s over and done with,” he replied patiently and cheerfully, feeling sorry for what he thought was her genuine repentance. “But this is the result,” she said, not consoled. “Don’t distress yourself,” he said. “Supposing I was tooken bad,” she began again. “’Tisn’t for a month yet,” said Lovel. “One doesn’t know always, with such things.” “Will you see the midwife?” he asked, perceiving that she was worried. But the whole subject, and Daisy’s very existence, though he spoke with solicitude and bent a kindly gaze on her to discover what were the poor creature’s real wishes,--the whole subject to him was utterly remote and meaningless. “The midwife over to Marlborough by this snow-fall!” she cried disdainfully. “I’ll ride over and get her if you like,--I’ll bring her out on a pillion.” “No, no, Lovel,” she said, shaking her head, “neither now nor when the child is born,--I’ll die without midwife, or doctor, more likely.”