“No, not that. I couldn’t do that. You’ve a heart soft enough to understand. I’ll go with ’e, wheer you be gwaine—ay, this very day I will. But I can’t bide here. I must get away from—from mother, an’ faither, an’ all. Then us can send a packet to ’em from far off. Anywheer but Postbridge, Jan.” “You’m in honest, sober, Bible earnest, Sarah?” “God’s my witness, I be.” “Then He’s my witness, tu, that I stand here a new man—an’ not shamed o’ the crumbs from t’other’s table. You to come back! ’Tis more’n my deserts—such a drunken swine as I’ve been since—” He paused a moment, then his manner changed suddenly and he gripped the girl’s arm so hard and glared so wildly that Gammer Gurney from her window feared a serious quarrel and nearly rushed out to separate them. “Mind this, then,” he said, with harsh intensity. “Mind this, now; you’m my whole life again,—body, an’ bones, an’ blood, an’ soul,—from this moment onwards. Theer’s gwaine to be no more changing now—no more altering your mind—or, by Christ, I won’t answer for myself. I ban’t so strong o’ will as I was, an’ since you’ve comed to me of your own free will, mine you’ll be till death ends it; an’ Lard help them as try to keep us apart now. Lard help ’em an’ deliver ’em from me. You’ve come, an’ I trust ’e—trust ’e same as I trust the sun to rise. But if you throw me over again, I’ll— No matter to speak on that. Awnly I’ll be true as steel to ’e; an’ you must play your part an’ look over your shoulder no more. You’ve spoke out o’ your heart, me out o’ mine; so let it be.” She was alarmed at this outburst, uttered with almost brutal energy and in loud accents. But it served its purpose and impressed her vacillating spirit with the impossibility of any further changes. “We’ve been up an’ down, him an’ me, full long enough,” continued Aggett. “Now, thanks be to a just God as I’d nearly forgot, you’ve come back to me an’ I could crow like a marnin’ cock to think it. An’ now what’ll please ’e to do? Will ’e come along o’ me this minute?” “Ess—no—not now; but to-night I might. I must go home an’ put together a few things an’ pack up others. I can send along to home for my li’l box later.” “To-night, then. An’, come next Sunday, us’ll be axed out in church at Ashburton straightway. Come to think, ’twould be better for you to bide along wi’ your folk until I be ready for ’e a week or two hence.” “No—I—” She was going to confess that she could not trust herself, but feared his eyes. “Why for not?” “I won’t stop here without you. I’ll come. They can hear the truth after I have gone.” “To-night, then,” he said. “Wheer shall I meet ’e to?”