All the rest of the day he prowled aimlessly about his land. His men were afraid, for it was the first time they had seen him spend a day without work. He touched neither spade nor pitchfork, he gave no orders, just wandered restlessly about the fields and barns. He ate no supper, but locked himself into his room, while the baby's thin wail rose through the beams of the kitchen ceiling, and little David cried fractiously for "mother." The next day Caro, haggard after another night made sleepless by her charges, knocked at his door. He had not come down to breakfast, and at eight o'clock the postman had brought a letter. "It's from Rose," said Caro timidly. "To me?" "No, to me." "Read it." Caro read it. Rose was in London, but left that day for Liverpool. Handshut had saved a little money, and they were going to Canada. "I don't ask Ben to forgive me, for I know he never will." "She's right there," said Reuben grimly. Caro stood before him, creasing the letter nervously. Her father's wrath broke upon her, for want of his proper victim. "Git out, can't yer--wot are you dawdling here for? You women are all the same--you'd be as bad as her if you cud only git a man." Caro shrank from the jibe as if from a blow, and Reuben laughed brutally. He had made one woman suffer anyway. § 23. Of course the neighbourhood gloated; and the rustic convention was set aside in Rose's favour, and all the shame of her elopement heaped on Reuben. "No wäonder as she cudn't stick to him--hard, queer chap as he be." "And thirty year older nor she, besides." "Young Handshut wur a präaper lad, and valiant. I äun't surprised as she'd rather have un wudout a penny than old Ben wud all his gold." "And he äun't got much o' that now, nuther. They say as he'll be bust by next fall." Heads were shaken in triumphant commiseration, and the stones which according to all decent tradition should have been flung at Rose, hurtled round her husband instead. Far away at Cheat Land, Alice Jury watched them fall--Alice Jury five years older than when she had struggled with Boarzell for Reuben before he married Rose. Her parents thought he had treated her badly, even though they did not know of the evening when she had humbled herself to plead for her happiness and his. She remembered that moment uneasily--it hurt her pride. But she could not regret having used her most desperate effort to win him, and she felt sure that he had understood her motive and realised that it was for him as well as for her that she had spoken. Now, when she heard of his catastrophe, she wondered if he would come back. Did men come back?--and if they did, was she the type of woman they came back to? Perhaps she was too quick, too antagonistic. She told herself miserably that a softer woman could have saved Reuben, and yet, paradoxically, a softer woman would not have wished to do so.