"If there ain't young Rowan going out to Bragg's End again!" she said to herself, comforting herself, I fear, or striving to comfort herself, with an inward assertion that he was not going there for any good. Striving to comfort herself, but not effectually; for though the assertion was made by herself to herself, yet it was not believed. Though she declared, with well-pronounced mental words, that Luke Rowan was going on that path for no good purpose, she felt a wretched conviction at her heart's core that Rachel Ray would be made to triumph over her and her early suspicions by a happy marriage. Nevertheless she carried the tidings up into Baslehurst, and as she repeated it to the grocer's daughters and the baker's wife she shook her head with as much apparent satisfaction as though she really believed that Rachel oscillated between a ruined name and a broken heart. He walked on very slowly towards Bragg's End, as though he almost dreaded the interview, swinging his stick as was his custom, and keeping his feet on the grassy edges of the road till he came to the turn which brought him on to the green. When on the green he did not take the highway, but skirted along under Farmer Sturt's hedge, so that he had to pass by the entrance of the farmyard before he crossed over to the cottage. Here, just inside her own gate, he encountered Mrs. Sturt standing alone. She had been intent on the cares of her poultry-yard till she had espied Luke Rowan; but then she had forgotten chickens and ducks and all, and had given herself up to thoughts of Rachel's happiness in having her lover back again. "It's he as sure as eggs," she had said to herself when she first saw him; "how mortal slow he do walk, to be sure! If he was coming as joe to me I'd soon shake him into quicker steps than them." "Oh, Mrs. Sturt!" said he, "I hope you're quite well," and he stopped short at her gate. "Pretty bobbish, thankee, Mr. Rowan; and how's yourself? Are you going over to the cottage this evening?" "Who's at home there, Mrs. Sturt?" "Well, they're all at home; Mrs. Ray, and Rachel, and Mrs. Prime. I doubt whether you know the eldest daughter, Mr. Rowan?" Luke did not know Mrs. Prime, and by no means wished to spend any of the hours of the present evening in making her acquaintance. "Is Mrs. Prime there?" he asked. "'Deed she is, Mr. Rowan. She's come back these last two days." Thereupon Rowan paused for a moment, having carefully placed himself inside the gate-posts of the farmyard so that he might not be seen by the inmates of the cottage, if haply he had hitherto escaped their eyes. "Mrs. Sturt," said he, "I wonder whether you'd do me a great favour." "That depends--" said Mrs. Sturt. "If it's to do any good to any of them over there, I will." "If I wanted to do harm to any of them I shouldn't come to you." "Well, I should hope not. Is she and you going to be one, Mr. Rowan? That's about the whole of it." "It shan't be my fault if we're not," said Rowan.