Cilla leaned forward, her face between her hands, and watched the road slip past the hedgerows. This man beside her, of all men in the world, had humbled her. He had gone willingly into a house of fever; he, the acknowledged wastrel of the parish, had put his back into the work of making Marshlands what it should be, and had changed the stubborn outlook of his neighbours from dislike to growing friendliness. That was much; but the confession she had wrung from him meant more to this girl whose sense of honour was clean and dainty as an April day. The father had done ill with his own life, and with his son’s; yet Reuben had striven to keep what starveling flowers he could in bloom about the old man’s grave. Gaunt waited till she chose to break the silence. He had learned patience last August, as he had learned strength, while he waited on the sun-scorched uplands to know if Peggy o’ Mathewson’s would live or die. He had learned further patience while nursing a half-ruined property into new health. Suddenly Cilla turned to him, and his heart beat faster than ever it had done while winning the great race at Linsall Fair. All that the spring day held of tenderness, of trust and hope and love of life for living’s sake, seemed gathered into Cilla’s glance. He had won his biggest race of all. “We’ll get down here, Will,” he said by and by, as they neared the old green lane that led back to Garth. “Thought ye were bound for Keta’s Well,” said the driver, with the dalesman’s frank curiosity. “So we were; but we’ve changed our minds.” Gaunt’s laugh was a boy’s again. He seemed not to care how soon all Strathgarth knew the meaning of the glance that Cilla had given him. “You’ve forgotten the old saying, Will; folk are free to change their minds i’ the spring, like the weather.” Cilla did not question, but took his hand and slipped lightly to the highway. At another time her father’s business up at Keta’s Well would have been all-important; but to-day she had forgotten it. “Humph!” muttered Will, as he drove forward between the lusty hedgerows. “Just a year since last I carried the lile fools as far as Keta’s Well. ’Tis a long while, seeing a babby could have told the two o’ them what ailed them. Well, I’m not complaining. If Miss Good Intent is half as bonnie wedded as she is single, there’s none of us need grumble. Gee-up, Captain! Her Majesty will put up with a lot, but she gets terrible cross if we’re late with her mails. Gee-up, lad, or shall I make ye?”