As a matter of fact, there existed no great need to impress the situation upon John Aggett. The man, if slow-witted, was not blind, and, indeed, agile enough of intellect where Sarah was concerned. For many days he had hesitated to read the change in her. His visits to her had been marked by gloomy fits of taciturnity, by short speeches, abrupt leave-takings, by distrust in his eyes, by rough mumbled sentences she could not catch, by outbursts of affection, by sudden hugs to his heart, by searching, silent scrutiny of her features and numberless reiterations of one question. He never wearied to hear her declare that she loved him; his only peace of mind was in the moments of that assurance daily repeated; and he approached to absolute subtlety in appraisement of Sarah’s voice and vocal inflection as she made answer. Until the present, her affirmation of love had rung truly upon his ear; now he felt a shadow behind the words and steeled himself to the change. Her lips said one thing; her voice and eyes another. He grew slowly to believe the signs and to realise that she loved him no more, or if a little, so little that she did not mind lying to him. Over this earthquake in his life he brooded bitterly enough, yet the stroke of it, upon first falling, was in some measure broken by his knowledge of Timothy’s interview with Gammer Gurney. A fatalistic resignation arose from this recollection and manifested itself, for the brief space of a week, in John’s attitude to his fate. But as the nature of all he had lost and how he had lost it beat upon his brain, a great agony of reality soon caused him to brush the white witch and her predictions out of the argument; they were factors too trivial to determine the careers of men and women; and thus, from beneath the smoke of his brief apathy appeared a consuming fire, and the man’s passionate nature cried for a speedy and definite end to his torments. Work upon the land was suspended under frost; but from the great barn in Bellever Barton came daily a hurtling of flails where threshing of barley kept the hands busy for many hours in each brief day. The flails gleamed like shooting stars across the dusty atmosphere of the barn, and when the sunlight entered, a sort of delicate golden cloud hung in the air, only to sink slowly away upon cessation of labour. Timothy Chave, too, laboured here. For something to occupy him he swung a flail with the rest, and made the old hands think better of themselves and their skill within sight of his clumsy efforts. Then it happened that Aggett, awake to an opportunity, suddenly desisted from work, pulled on his coat and accosted his rival. But he spoke for Tim’s ear alone and challenged no general attention. “Set down your drashel an’ come an’ speak wi’ me a minute t’other side the yard.” “Certainly, John, if you wish it.”