"I'll come up and look at you anyhow," said Dinah. "That won't shock the people; and I dare say, now that Susan knows what it is to love a man--but don't you fear. I won't kiss you even with my eyes, Lawrence." "Susan wouldn't see nothing for that matter," he said. "Love be a dour pastime for her and Palk as things are. They be like us in a way--frightened to look at each other under that roof." "But firm," she said. "Cousin Joe ain't going to choke Susan off it?" "Not him. She'll take Thomas, so sure as you take me." Dinah was cheerful again before he left her. "When we'm married, I'll always be wanting to kiss you afore the people," she said, "just for the joy of doing it openly." Then they parted, to meet no more in secret until they should never part again. He half regretted her determination to sail with him, as he tramped home; yet he felt in no mind to argue the point. In his present spirit, sharing her indignation that his fellow men would thrust him away from Dinah for ever if they could, he cared little more than she for what their world might say and think when they had vanished from it for a larger. CHAPTER XXXI JOE'S SUNDAY Melinda stood at her door and spoke to her neighbour, Mr. Harry Ford, the gardener. He was a red-whiskered man of fifty, and he and Mrs. Honeysett viewed life somewhat similarly. "You bad creature," she said, "working in your garden o' Sunday!" This was the sort of remark on which Harry never wasted speech. He went on with his digging. "I wish the second early potatoes were coming up so well at the Court as they are here in my little patch," he remarked. "But they haven't got the nice bit o' sand in the soil as we have." He rested a moment. "How's Jerry going on?" he asked. "Have it come right?" "No, I'm sorry to say; and yet not sorry neither. She's keeping all this up because he vexed her Easter Monday. They was at Ashburton revel together and she says he took a drop too much and very near ran the trap over Holne Bridge and broke her neck coming home. And he says no such thing. But the real trouble is about the blessed shop Jane wants to start at Ashburton after marriage. She's for a tobacco shop, and Jerry wants for it to be green-grocer's, where he can do his part. My own belief is that Jane Bamsey's getting tired of Jerry. If the wedding had gone through when it was ordained, all might have been well; but owing to Ben Bamsey's illness and sad downfall after, 'twas put off. I never much liked her I may tell you, no more didn't my father." "He must have been a bit of a wonder--a very clever man they say." "He was a clever man." "Did he believe in the ghost in my house, Mrs. Honeysett?" "He did not--no more than you do."