As in the case of all her other schemes for entertainment and exaltation, she crept to this and let it develop slowly. As the rift between her and Ned grew wider, the gap narrowed between her and Jordan Kellock. At each meeting she decreased the distance between them, yet never by definite word or deed appeared to be doing so. Kellock himself did not realise it. He knew the fact and taxed his own conscience with it at first; but then for a time his conscience left him in doubt as to his duty, until in the light of Medora’s increasing sufferings, it spoke more distinctly and chimed dangerously with his inclination. His whole life was dominated by this great matter. It had become personal and he wrestled with his difficulties by day and night. Medora was one of those women who have a marvellous power of influencing other judgments. She had a fatal gift to waken dislike and distrust of another person in the mind of a third. She had already created aversion for Ned in the minds of several women; now Jordan, despite his own reason, felt himself beginning to hate Dingle as heartily as Medora appeared to do. He fought this emotion for a time; but found it impossible any longer to maintain an impartial attitude. He told himself that it was only false sentiment to pretend farther impartiality. Justice demanded antagonism to Ned in the future—not because Medora had once been Jordan’s whole hope and desire and was now herself unhappy and friendless; but because, as an honest man, Kellock could not longer be impartial. His views of life were changing; his orderly mind was beginning to suspect that strong action might be necessary. Justice was the word most often on his lips; and yet knowing that he loved Medora, he was intelligent enough to perceive that inclination might be deluding him and making apparently simple what, in reality, was complex. For a time he hesitated; then came a day when he met Medora by appointment and felt it impossible to stand outside her life any longer. She, indeed, forced his hand and made it clear that she was going to take definite steps for her own salvation. Medora, on her way to Priory Farm one Sunday afternoon, had arranged to meet Kellock at the ruins of the building that gave the farm its name. Here they would be safe from any interruption. The fragment of masonry crowned Mr. Dolbear’s orchard on the summit of the hill that fell into Cornworthy. Here, heaved up against the sky in its ivy mantle, stood the meagre remains of an old priory, one of the smaller houses of the Austin nuns, founded by the Norman lords of Totnes.