After the medley of emotions awakened by her meeting with her husband, no solid foundation remained to Medora’s mind. Indeed, everything solid seemed to crumble before the apparition of Ned so close; before all the little familiar marks of him, his mannerisms, his vibrant voice, his virility, the flushing colour on his cheeks, the masculine sound and sight of him. Against that vision, which haunted her pillow at Priory Farm, arose the spectacle of Kellock—the difference between a stout, shadow-casting man and one himself a shadow. Kellock was a great hero still (she clave to that), but none the less he had become something spectral for her. Ned she knew—her recent meeting reminded her how well; but Kellock she did not know, and from that long night of thought there emerged one steadfast emotion: she began to cease to want to know. Perception of this startling indifference frightened Medora. It was half-past four o’clock in the morning, and an early thrush already sang when she made this discovery. She shivered at such a sentiment, set it down to hunger, and so arose and descended to the larder. She ate and slept, and in the morning told her mother of the talk with Dingle. They walked together to Dene, and before Lydia went to the rag house, she had heard disquieting things. It was not the facts that concerned her, for they were to the good. That Ned wished to see Kellock and had determined not to claim damages, comforted Mrs. Trivett, for that argued an intention on Ned’s part to be done with the matter, and take such steps as should enable her daughter to marry at the earliest opportunity permitted by law; but it was Medora’s attitude to Dingle that surprised her, and as she reached the Mill, she voiced her astonishment. “You’ll keep me ’mazed to my dying day, I reckon,” she said. “My own daughter, and yet never, never do you do, or say, or look at things how I should expect.” “What’s the matter now then?” “It’s right you should feel obliged to your late husband—I’m not wondering at that. But now—just because you talked to him, and he behaved like the man he is, and spoke sense and didn’t break your neck, as some men might—just because of that, you seem to have turned round and—and—well, to hear you this morning one would think you and Ned—” Medora quite understood.