“By the beech—you know. Through the woods be the nearest road for us. To the gert beech, wheer I set our letters in a love knot. No better place. Theer I’ll come, an’ theer I’ll count to see ’e when the moon rises over the hill. An’ doan’t ’e keep me waitin’—not a moment, not the atom of a moment! I’ve gone through enough, an’ my brain spins yet to think o’ the past. Suffer more I can’t—no more at all. You’ll be sorry to your dying day if you’m late. Better never come than that. My head be full o’ strange things at this wonnerful happy happening,—strange things,—but I’ll say no more than bid you be to the beech by moon-rise, if ’tis true that you love me an’ not false. Be theer—or you’ll awnly repent it once, Sarah, an’ that’s so long as you do live arter.” He exhibited little love now and less tenderness. It almost appeared that a mind long familiar with darkness was unable to accept and understand the light suddenly shed upon it. A note of impending catastrophe sounded in his words, seemed shadowed in his wild eyes. “You fright me,” said Sarah. “You doan’t take me as I hoped you would. You ban’t your old self, yet. How should you be for that matter? ’Tis only poor second-hand goods I’m bringing to ’e.” “Not so. ’Tis what I had first promise of. I’ll be all a man can be to ’e—all I should be. Forgive me for harsh words; but I be dazed wi’ this gert come-along-o’-it. I’ve been sore let for many days, an’ ’twill take time to make me see wi’ the old eyes when the brains in my head grow sweet an’ cool again, an’ the poison works out of ’em.” They talked a little while longer, then the white witch from her chamber window saw them turn and together retrace their steps. CHAPTER X That highest hope, long abandoned, should thus suddenly return within his reach, staggered John Aggett, and went far to upset the man’s mental equilibrium. Indeed, it had been but a little exaggeration to describe his mind as, for the time, unhinged. The splendour of his changed position dazed him. Joy and bewilderment strove for mastery, and from a medley of poignant sensations was bred the passionate desire of possession, and a wild hunger to secure for his own what had been withheld so long.