Soon after six o’clock that evening Nancy visited the Cove for the first time since the fatal quarrel with Jagger. She had thought she would never see the place again with pleasure—there had been one hour of bitter repentance when she had vowed that the scene of her folly should have no existence for her in the future—but she was surprised to find her heart warm as she looked upon the great crag and saw the jackdaws wheeling about in the neighbourhood of their nests. The sun would not set for another hour, but its couch was behind the mountains and Mawm would see it no more until the morrow, yet there was a wash of amber on the limestone, and the rock looked genial and friendly. There was something soul-stirring and at the same time strangely soothing in the contemplation of the ponderous cliff that faced unmoved the most violent storms and all the vicissitudes of the years. Cold as it was Nancy sat down on a rock beside the stream, and the rippling water, murmuring like an infant on its mother’s lap, turned her thoughts in another direction and brought the hot blush to her cheeks. Raising her eyes she became conscious that a man was descending the lower slope a hundred yards away, and her face lost its colour as she recognised Jagger, and saw that she was unobserved. She was not afraid to encounter him, though they had not met in privacy before since her marriage, and had exchanged scarcely a dozen words; rather, her senses were numbed and she watched him incuriously, as if he had been a bird that had dropped down to the river to drink; and when she saw him bend his head and stand motionless, though she knew what his thoughts must be, no emotion of pity or contempt disturbed her, and she experienced no desire to steal away and escape his notice. Her feelings were turned to stone, like the man who stood as rigid as the boulders at his feet. Even when he wheeled round and came towards her with his eyes still on the ground; when she knew that she must inevitably be discovered, her pulse beat no more quickly; but when he brushed against her dress, and uttered a startled exclamation of recognition as his eyes leaped to her face she smiled. “I’ve been watching you this last five minutes,” she said in a calm voice, but with the weary intonation of a care-worn woman. He was much more at a loss for words than she, yet he recovered his self-possession in a moment. “I’ve never been here since that day,” he began; and the girl nodded. “Nor me, neither,” she said; “but I’m glad I came.” “Are you? I was wondering if I hadn’t better have stayed away; if I hadn’t better cross t’ Cove off t’ map and have done with it. It hurts, Nancy! It’ll always hurt!” “Hurts!” she answered with an emphasis of mockery. “Your hurt is just an empty place, a bit of an ache, same as when you’ve fasted too long. _My_ hurt is a serpent ’at I’ve taken of my own free will and pressed to my bosom, and it bites deeper every day.”