“You have heard the news?” he asked, feeling oddly ill at ease. “I hear so little. It is not father’s way nor mine.” Cilla’s glance rested quietly on him, and she stood a little straighter than her wont, with an air of withdrawal. “If ’tis the fever you mean, of course we’ve heard of it. They talk of nothing else these days in Garth.” “It was not the fever I meant. Do you remember that you asked me months ago to do something? We were standing at the porch-door at Good Intent.” Cilla flushed, and moved a pace or two away. “Yes, I remember. It was you, Mr. Gaunt who seemed to have forgotten.” “We’re to be married in October,” he said bluntly. For a moment she hesitated, then held out her hand. “I wish you well--indeed, I wish you both well. Though we hear so little gossip, they told me Peggy was queen o’ the fair at Linsall. She deserved to be, I think.” With a smile and a bend of the head in token of farewell, she had left him. He turned in the saddle to watch her go down the road, with her light, easy step, then plucked his horse into a trot. He was out of temper with the day, though he had begun it light-heartedly enough. His old infirmity had returned to him at sight of Priscilla; with the best will in the world to be loyal, he was bewildered by the grace and fragrance which Cilla had brought along this dusty road. His vanity was hurt, moreover; there had been no sign of regret or sorrow in Cilla’s voice; her friendliness and her unconcern were harder to bear than any of Widow Mathewson’s downright attacks had been. Priscilla moved more slowly once she was out of sight. She was lingering in fancy through that day of spring when she and Gaunt had gone to Keta’s Well. And she laughed at herself because the tears in her eyes were very near falling. Why should she grieve because he had done what she asked of him? Since Keta’s Well and all the folly of the spring there had been the merciless heat, the ruined hay-crop, the fever that had not entered Garth as yet, though the shadow of it lay constantly about the village. “Ah, now, there’s enough that is real to be thought of,” was Cilla’s way of meeting the fresh heartache. “Father would tell me, I’m sure, that ’tis no time at all to be playing with dreams and fancies.” Billy the Fool stood at the forge door as she passed--Billy, with the air of great business and importance which had come to him since David left him in sole charge of the forge. “Morning, Miss Good Intent!” he said, saluting gravely. “Terrible days for pleasuring, now that David’s left me master-smith.” He nodded toward the inside of the smithy, and a tranquil grin broke across his face. “Dan Foster’s lad is blowing bellows in yonder. Te-he! I just told him to get the fire all a-glowing an’ a-crackling, an’ the lile chap’s doing on’t! ’Tis wonderful how some folk do sweat while others go playing.” “Then what will you play at to-day?” asked Cilla, her smile made up of rue and rosemary.