“What else should have kept him, lassie? I had all the tale from Mrs. Mathewson, and I tell you she’s lucky to have such a man about her. Pride may be fine enough, Cilla, but not when you’re alone in a house, with one death to cry over and another--your own--to look forward to.” Cilla’s face clouded again. “Is--is the risk so great as they would have us believe?” “Well, maybe not; there’s always hope--always hope, Cilla. And there are two of them to help keep the boggarts away.” Yet Cilla knew that the old doctor took a grave view of the matter; his praise of Gaunt, praise such as he rarely gave, was proof that he thought Reuben guilty of foolhardiness. All Garth would learn now that its judgment of Gaunt had been wrong; but there would be little use in that, if he died in proving it. Then suddenly she thought of Peggy, and pity drove away her selfishness. She recalled the fine, careless swing of the gipsy figure, as “Mathewson’s lass” had passed her on the moors or going to market. There seemed something harsh, uncalled-for, in the passing of so brave a soul. And it was she who had persuaded Reuben to be true to a promise earlier than she could claim, in those near yet far-off days of spring. Priscilla returned, tired out, to Good Intent. The world of Garth might be small, but the girl’s heart was big as the limits of human compassion and human searching after happiness. The two instincts were so mingled, since hearing the doctor’s news, that Cilla could not disentangle them. “Come ye in, now,” said her father, who was smoking the after-work pipe of evening, which was the sweetest of the day to him. “Ye’re looking bothered, like. It all comes o’ gadding about i’ this heat overmuch. Grown men can bear it, but not lile hazel saplings such as ye.” Cilla only smiled, and went up to her own room. She could not bear to talk just now even with Yeoman Hirst, the best of all her friends. “Let a maid alone when she wears that look,” Hirst muttered sagely. “I was never much of a hand at tackling whimsies. I’d liefer have a thorn-hedge any day.” The doctor, meanwhile, had passed down Garth street. He was thinking mainly of the good meal and the ease that he had earned, and he frowned as he saw Widow Lister watering her strip of garden-front. He knew the little woman by heart, and indeed reined up before she had darted into the roadway. “Oh, doctor, I’ve been trying to catch ye these two days back,” she said. “Well? D’ye want to consult me? Shouldn’t say much ailed you, by the plump look o’ your cheeks.” The widow simpered a little, and cast down her eyes. “’Tisn’t what ails me, doctor; ’tis what might ail me.”