Witherlee made as if to put an arm about her, so wishful of comfort she seemed; but he withdrew, feeling that her grief was over-terrible for such rough consolation as he had to offer. Instead, he filled his pipe and lit it, and waited till she found more to tell him. They rested so for a long while, with only the song of birds and the moan of a rainy breeze to break the silence. Then, "I see it all, Sexton," she said quietly—"the evening when Wayne of Marsh, my husband, found me with my lover in the orchard—Wayne’s death—the flight with Dick Ratcliffe of Wildwater. We gained the wicket up above there—we could hear the harness rattling of the chaise that was to carry us to safety—and then—" She stopped and hid her face awhile. "’Tis ower an’ done wi’ long sin’," murmured the Sexton; "ower an’ done wi,’ Mistress." "’Twill never be over and done with. Dick was killed—but I—I was not given death, only a merciful little spell of sleep." "Nay, I wish th’ poor body wod cry her een out," thought the Sexton, watching the bright eyes and tragic face. "I niver held wi’ a crying woman myseln, but I could thoyle tears better nor this stark, dry grief o’ hers." But Mistress Wayne was far from tears as yet. A great load was on her heart, crushing the misery inward; it was long before she could shake off the least part of it, but at last—after the Sexton had waited with a patience that was all his own—she crept nearer to him, and laid a hand on his, and began to talk with a quiet and settled gravity. "I was not at all to blame, Sexton," she said. "I think, if he knew all, even dead Wayne of Marsh might look with pity on me. I was so young when he brought me out of the sweet, warm South up into these dreary mountain-tops—so young, and the folk here were so harsh, and I hated them when they mocked me for my foreign ways. Wayne was kind, so far as he knew how to be, but I feared him—feared his sternness, and his hard dark face. The storms that only brought him ruder health were killing me, and the wind at nights, as it moaned about the chimney-stacks, was like a dirge. And Nell could not forgive me for coming a second wife to Marsh. I had no friend at all, save Shameless Wayne; they despised him as a drunkard and a reveller, but I never had aught but kindness and goodwill from him. Sexton, was it not hard——" Witherlee did not answer. His glance, roving to the far side of the graveyard, had fallen on his goodwife, who was nearing him with a brisk, decided step; and he, who feared no ghost that ever walked light-footed through the grasses, shrank from the tongue which was wont to fall like a flail on him. "Ay, I said how ’twould be!" cried Nanny, while still a score yards off. "Frittering thy time away, while th’ wife is wearing herseln bone-thin for thee. Here th’ dinner hes been cooked this half-hour, an’ th’ dumplings as cold as Christmas, an’ I allus did say th’ most worritsome trick a man could hev war coming late to his victuals."