A good night's rest did much towards restoring Garth's outward equanimity, but he still chafed secretly under the mortification he had undergone with a soreness that surprised himself. The check he had received had angered and embittered him. He was not in love with Dora, after the usual interpretation of the word; nevertheless, her yoke lay heavy upon him. The friendship between them had grown with his growth; he had learned to see with her eyes, and read with her judgment. In a cool, temperate sort of way he had loved and wooed her from his earliest manhood. He had been a trifle indifferent to women in general. When the time came to take a wife, that wife should be Dora. But now the plan of his life was disarranged. He had waited long enough, and now he told himself that no more time should be given her; he would shake off the dust of the place from his feet; he would bear himself as a stranger towards her and her belongings; but even while his indignation was hot within him, he knew that such resolution would be vain. Not even now had he wholly relinquished all hopes of her. True, she had sinned against him, and the gravity of the offence demanded a fitting punishment. Well, he would hold aloof from her, and treat her on all occasions with studied coldness, until she would rid herself of this womanish folly, and capitulate on his own terms. Then, and then only, would he forgive her, and raise her to the former measure of his favor. The surrender on her part must be total. There should be no softness, no half-measures, no conciliating persuasion on his; for the future it should be yea, yea, or at least nay, nay, between them. Garth was just in that dangerous mood when a straw might decide the current of his will, when a trifle might widen the breach which a word at one time could have spanned. Dora had little idea of the danger she risked when she sent her lover from her discontented and dissatisfied. "You may find it very difficult to recall me, Dora," he had said to her, with some instinctive prevision of the truth, but she had not believed him. For the first time the young master of Warstdale found himself restless and unhappy; his sleepless night still abided in his mind as an undeserved and lasting injury. The next day had set in wet and stormy; heavy autumnal rains swept across the moors, and flooded the country road, and the little straggling town of Hepshaw. Garth had driven himself and Ted in the same taciturn fashion from the quarry, and both had entered the house, shivering and uncomfortable, in their dripping garments. "Oh you poor dear creatures," cried Cathy, flying out into the hall to receive them; but Ted waved her off gravely, and shook himself like a wet Newfoundland.