The outer door closed, and from the window Nancy saw their shadowy forms disappear round the corner of the road. Without a moment’s hesitation she went downstairs and unbarring the kitchen window, climbed out, and having closed the sash behind her sped towards the beck and across the green to the Drakes’ house. The retreating forms of her husband and his companion could just be discerned in the faint moonlight far down the road as she knocked at the door. “Is Jagger in?” she whispered when Hannah came. “Tell him I want him—at once—and come you with him.” “Come where?” asked Hannah, in astonishment. “Here!” said Nancy impatiently. “Bring him out and shut the door. There’s no time to lose!” She had one eye on the road as she spoke, and she kept it there when Hannah and Jagger joined her; but however apprehensive she may have been of her husband’s return, she told her story clearly and concisely. “What’ll you do?” she asked when Jagger made no immediate comment. “I can’t make head or tail of it.” “I’ll go see what I can make on’t,” he said, “before he gets a chance to get there. It’s a rum do!” “And if he finds you there?” she asked. “If he finds me there, there’ll happen be trouble,” he replied; “but I’ve t’ same right to be i’ Gordel that he has. Anyway, I’m going.” “Will you take Jack with you?” she asked anxiously. “James’ll do you a mischief if he can.” “Aye, take Jack,” said Hannah. “It’s as well to be on t’ safe side.” “Two ’ud happen bungle it,” he said. “I’m a match for Jim Inman any day. I’ll go now, before either of ’em gets back.” Nancy returned home, and the gloom of Gordel settled on her spirits as she bolted herself into her prison-house again. The candle had set fire to its paper packing and burnt itself out; but when she drew up the blind a gleam of light entered from the sky and she had no difficulty in replacing the garments on their hooks. When the work was finished she did not undress. A sense of weariness and hopelessness crushed her. Her husband would know that she had tricked him and would make her pay the penalty. What would it be? How long would this sort of thing continue? The long vista of the road she was destined to travel with a husband who hated her and whom she despised spread itself before her. She was afraid, too, for Jagger, and a hundred times over upbraided herself for having sent him into danger, without adequate cause; a hundred times over lamented the curiosity that had moved her to do it. Once or twice it crossed her mind that it would have been better to have seen Maniwel instead of Jagger; he was so sane and strong and dependable—so safe, too; for Nancy shared the prevalent belief or superstition that no real harm could befall Maniwel Drake; but another inward counsellor brushed the suggestion aside. “He’d say, ‘What business is it of ours? Let him go his own gait; and get you up to bed!’”