Ophir had exerted a deteriorating effect on Grizzly. He had become idle; he had learned to beg; he had acquired a taste for rum. He expected Joyce to do everything for him, that he might lounge away his time about the mine, repeating his parrot story to the visitors, putting the dust into the water, and watching them find it. Old Tramplara and young Sampson had given him money, and the workmen, supposed all to be sworn abstainers, had indulged him from their bottles of cold alcoholic tea. Like a savage brought suddenly into association with civilised man, he learned their vices, and unlearned none of his own brutality. When it was known at West Wyke that John Herring was lying ill under the Giant’s Table, Mr. Battishill and Cicely sent to have him removed to their house, and poor Joyce offered only a faint, though sullen, resistance. She knew she could not keep him, but she was reluctant to lose him. She knew that it was good for him to go, and she did violence to her own heart in suffering him to be carried away. She followed him to the doorway of West Wyke, holding his hand, and without taking her eyes off him. ’Come, Joyce,’ said Cicely, ’you have been so good and devoted hitherto, that you had best remain as nurse. Come in and attend to Mr. Herring till he is well.’ But Joyce shook her head. ’I’ll not go under no hellens [slates], or I should smother,’ she said. ’Where be you a-going to take ’n to?’ ’We shall put him in that room,’ answered Cicely, indicating the window. ’There’ll be a light there of nights, I reckon. I shall see ’n. And of day, when vaither don’t want nort a-doing, I’ll just hop over and sit down outside, in thicky corner o’ the garden wall.’ Then Joyce grasped Herring’s hand in both hers, and the tears filled her eyes. ’It were I, your poor Joyce, as saved you. You’ll not forget that, will’y now?’ Then she turned away, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Cicely looked after her. Joyce did not turn back; she walked on with her peculiar free stride, her head down, and her arm across her face. Herring had been jarred and contused by his fall, and he suffered greatly for a few days. Every movement caused pain. The doctor visited him, and insisted on quiet, and that his head should be kept cool and his mind unoccupied. The news of Mr. Trampleasure’s death and of Sampson’s evasion were not communicated to him till it was seen that he troubled his mind about the result of the exposure of Ophir. Nothing could be done, at least by him, in the matter.