It was strange that she was so lazy, not to move or to speak in answer while the summons of the triumphant lover went on booming through the lower house. _He_ must have wondered. Perhaps it was then that the first shadow of the ghost of doubt crept over him, or perhaps it was when, stepping out on the turf, he raised his eyes and discovered Mary's face in the open window. He said nothing. But with a wide, uncontrolled gesture he held up the ring for her to see. After a moment she opened her lips. "Where's Andrew?" That seemed to be the last straw: a feverish anger laid hold of him. "Here's the ring! You see it! Damnation, Mary! You gave your word and I took it, and God knows what I've been through. Now come! Get your things on and bring your mother if you like--but to Minister Malden's you go with me _now_! You hear Mary? I'll not wait!" "Where's Andrew?" "Andrew? Andrew? Why the devil do you keep on asking for Andrew? What's _Andrew_ to you--now?" "Where is he?" "Mary, you're a fool!" Her voice grew if anything more monotonous; his, higher and wilder. "You're a fool," he cried again, "if you don't know where Andrew is." "He's gone." "Gone, yes! And how you can say it like that, so calm--God!" "I knew he was going," she said. "He told Rolldown he was going to other parts. But I knew it before that--when he turned at the door and looked at me, Joshua. He said it as plain: 'If _that's_ love,' he said, 'then I'm going off somewhere and forget it, and never come back to Urkey any more.'" The deadness went out of her voice, and it lifted to another note. "Joshua, he's got to come back, for I can't bear it. I gave you my word, and I'll marry you--when Andrew comes back to stand at the wedding. He's got to--_got_ to!" Mother Poll said that Joshua stared at her--simply stood there and stared up at her in the queer, cold dawn, his mouth hanging open as if with a kind of horror. Sweat shone on his face. Turning away without a word by and by he laid an uncertain course for the gate, and leaving it open behind him went off through the vapors of the cow street to the east. As they carried him along step by step, I think, the feet of the cheated gambler grew heavier and heavier, his shoulders collapsed, the head, with the memory in it he could never lose, hung down, and hell received his soul. It is impossible in so short a space to tell what the next ten years did to those two. It would have been easier for Mary Matheson in a city, for in a city there is always the blankness of the crowd. In a village there is no such blessed thing as a stranger, the membership committee of the only club is the doctor and the midwife, and all the houses are made of glass.