"I mind when he parted wi' you," she went on. "He come back to me. I knew he'd come. 'That's over, my dear,' says he, 'an' over for good an' all, too. A false woman's better found out before the ring's on her hand.' An' false you are, too," added Susannah loudly--"to Heber first and to Saunders last." "But here I am all the same," rejoined Catherine, her spirit roused where another woman was concerned. Susannah laughed again. "Well, why not?" she cried; "no one knows better nor me _why_ you're here. Heber's not one to let the paying of his debts slip out of his mind. 'Saunders shall never have her,' says he. 'I'll be even wi' Saunders.' And like enough he'll be even wi' you, too, Catherine Dennis. Are you goin' to stop here waitin' for him? Maybe you'll have to wait longer than you think." Defiance died out of the girl's face, and a chill went to her heart as this new and dreadful idea reached her. Through the darkness Susannah heard the catch of her breath. She rose, and coming close to Catherine, she knelt down and thrust a stick from the bundle lying in the chimney-corner between the bars. She crouched, devouring the other with her fierce look as the fire blazed up. "It's not a white-faced thing like you that's the match for a man like him," she added. Her companion watched her, fascinated. She felt small and poor in the presence of Susannah's bold womanhood. The angles which the wear of life and work had begun to accentuate strengthened, by contrast, her untamed generosity of line. Her red lips were drawn back a little from her even teeth, and her hair, tousled by contact with her pillow, burned in hotter colours in the glow which came from the grate. She had repelled Catherine so completely, that only at this moment did she strike her as a creature of possible attraction, something more than a mere sordid, sexless influence. But, with the warm light and some undercurrent in Susannah's voice and talk, there came to the younger woman a new view of her companion. This throb of revelation was still quick in her when Susannah spoke again. "Yes, you may wait," she said slowly; "you may sit and wait--and you'll know something more at the end nor you do now. Have I lived here for nigh upon three years under the old man's roof for nothin'? Is Heber my own cousin for nothin'? D'ye think because I haven't got a white face an' soft ways that no man has ever looked at me? D'ye believe that when Heber comes home it's uncle that he comes for?" She rose to her feet, and as she did so she shook her head, and her rolled-up hair fell and hung below her waist. She picked up the horn comb that clattered down upon the hearthstone. "Look!" she cried, holding out the tangled mass. Her arm was at full stretch, and as the ends of hair slipped away from between palm and fingers, the sleeve of her coarse night-smock slipped back too and her thick, round arm showed through the sleeve as a patch of the white moon through the drifting of dusky cloud.