She protested and wept; he was firm. For a little hour his lofty mood held and he completed the final act of renunciation before he slept. Knowing full well that Chave would never hear the truth from Sarah, he laid wait for him that night and met him in Postbridge at a late hour. The men stood side by side in the empty, naked road that here crossed Dart by a pack-saddle bridge. The night was rough and cold but dry, and the wind wailing through naked beeches, the river rattling harshly over its granite bed, chimed in unison with the recent sorrow of Timothy’s heart. When Sarah announced her determination, the youth had threatened self-destruction and foretold madness. Neither one thing nor the other happened, but he was sufficiently miserable and his sufferings had by no means grown blunted on this night as he plodded wearily through the village. Aggett, moving out of the darkness, recognised his man and spoke. “Come you here—on to the bridge,” he said abruptly. “Theer us’ll be out o’ the way o’ the world, an’ can sit ’pon the stones an’ I can say what’s to say.” “There is nothing to talk about between us. If you knew how much I have suffered and am still suffering, you’d spare me more words.” “Aw jimmery! You’m a poor whinin’ twoad—too slack-twisted for any full-grown woman, I should have reckoned. But your luck be in. She comed back to me for duty; now she’m gwaine back to you for love.” “Does she know her own mind, John?” “Ess fay, an’ allus did arter you come.” Now Aggett briefly explained the events of the past fortnight and his own determination concerning Sarah, while the younger man felt his blood wake from its sleep and race again through his veins. His treasure had not been lost and life was worth living yet. He had tact sufficient to make no comments upon the story. He spared John Aggett many words. But he gazed once or twice at the other’s heaving breast and wild eyes and told himself that the cowman was a being altogether beyond his power to understand. Then he crept away as quickly as he could and did not sleep until he had spoken with Sarah. On this occasion his account of events was framed in words of most meek and humble sort. He awarded Aggett full measure of praise, while upon himself he heaped sufficient obloquy, feeling that he could very well afford to do so as a price for this return to paradise. CHAPTER VII