Dinah was first at the tryst and doubted not that Maynard would come. The lonely, naked woods swept round her and she sat on a fallen trunk not far from where the Webburn sisters shot the grey forest with light and foamed together beneath the feet of trees. The day was dull and windy with rain promised from the south. Withered beech leaves whirled about Dinah's feet in little eddies, then rushed and huddled away together in hurtling companies--with a sound like a kettle boiling over, thought Dinah. Her mind was not wholly upon Maynard, for Joe Stockman's gloomy prophecy had come true in one case and Mr. Bamsey was indisposed from a chill caught at the funeral. As yet they were not concerned for him; but he had grown somewhat worse since the preceding day and Faith had sent Jane to fetch the doctor. Jane never declined a commission that would take her into Ashburton. A smudge of black appeared in the woods and Maynard stood on the east bank of the river. Dinah rose and waved to him; then he ascended the stream until a place for crossing appeared. Here he leapt from stone to stone and was soon beside her. They wandered away and he found a spot presently, where the ground was dry with fallen needles from a pine above it. "Sit here," he said, "a little while." She had not spoken till now, save to tell him her foster-father was ill. But when they sat side by side, with the bole of the great pine behind them and its lower boughs sweeping about them to the ground, she answered all the questions he wanted to put in one swift action. For a moment she looked at him and her face glowed; and then she put her arms round his neck and kissed him. "Dinah--d'you mean it?" he said. "Oh, d'you mean all that?" "I want you; I can't live my life without you, Lawrence." "After what I've told you?" His arms were round her now and he had paid her fiercely for her kiss. "What is marriage? I've been puzzling about it. I've been puzzling about it for years, for it seems years since you told me you was married. And if you knew what I'd been feeling, or how I fought not to kiss you at the funeral, you'd be sorry for me. But you've only been sorry for yourself I expect, you selfish man." He did not answer. He had released her, but was still holding one of her hands. "I'd make you a good wife, Lawrence," she said. "By God you would!" "And what is marriage then? Why d'you tell me you're married to her--any more than I'm married to John Bamsey--or anybody?" "Marriage is a matter of law, and a man can only marry one wife." "And what's a wife then?" "The woman you are married to--she that's got your name." "Would you say your wife was married?" "Certainly she is." "A widow then?" "Not a widow if her husband is alive." "Then why d'you say that Gilbert Courtier died when Lawrence Maynard came to life? If Gilbert Courtier's dead, then his wife is a widow."