As in all joy, there was a corner somewhere, unswept by the cool evening breeze, which harboured distrust of happiness. It was not Reuben she distrusted--for she was one of the brave, simple kind who, once loving, are hard to move from faith; it was belief in God’s ulterior harshness, which is the cold refuge of the weak: it was a doubt of the reality of what she felt, a looking out toward something steadier and more calm. “Troubled still?” asked Gaunt, recovering quickly from the shock of meeting Peggy, now the danger of it was over for the present. “It seems too good, that is all,” she answered. And then he talked to her, as they moved through the quiet after-light and neared the stile that brought them to the croft of Good Intent. He put his love, his hopes of a finer life, his resolutions for the future days, into words that would have moved a harder and more clear-sighted maid than Cilla. He talked once more of foreign lands, and again of this sweet Garth that lay about them, and he twined his love of Cilla throughout it all like a golden thread. Priscilla forgot that dark corner where vague distrust span webs like a spider in a dusky room. Out of her heart she gave her love to Gaunt; and, because her heart was full, she needs must laugh. “Reuben, we’ve not told father yet.” “No, but will do soon. What’s the thought in your bonnie head, Cilla?” “Why, that I must wash my face, for I’ve been crying. Father is never so tired o’ nights but he looks at me at home-coming, and he seems to know if an eyelash lies out of its own proper place.” This side the stile, where they had halted, there was a well-spring for the cattle--a trough of stone, all but hidden long since by the mosses and the ferns that fed greedily upon the water. Priscilla dipped her kerchief in, and washed her face, and dipped the kerchief in again. “Good night,” she said demurely, when she was satisfied that all the stains of the night’s tumult were removed. “Ah, but not so quietly, if you please.” So she reached up her face to him; and then he said he would wait till she was safely home, for even the home-croft held dangers when you loved a maid. And Priscilla tripped happily across the grey-dark grass, and, because she was happy, she turned at the bend of the mistal-yard and hooted like a barn-owl, to let Reuben know that she was safe. Gaunt laughed as he turned home about. He did not follow the wandering line of the stream this time, but took a straight course across the fields--a course that led him, as it chanced, to the gate over which Peggy Mathewson was leaning, still fighting despair as best she might. Her back was turned to him, but even in the dim light Gaunt could not mistake the figure; he bit his lip impatiently, and wondered if he should pass on and climb the wall a little further up. “Nay, she would know, though she won’t seem to see me now,” he muttered. “Best have it out, and have done with it.”