"Oh, the gal's got a big heart; I could tell it from her eyes," said old Jacob. "When you see those dark, solemn eyes, lookin' out of a pale, peaked face, it means thar's a heart behind 'em, an' a heart that bodes trouble some day, whether it be in man or woman." Christopher passed his hand across his brow and stood staring vacantly at the smouldering logs. He could not tell whether the news saddened or rejoiced him, but, at least, it brought Maria's image vividly before his eyes. The spell of her presence was over him again, and he felt, as he had felt on that last evening, the mysterious attraction of her womanhood. So intense was the visionary appeal that it had for the moment almost the effect of hallucination; it was as if she still entreated him across all the distance. The brooding habit of his mind had undoubtedly done much to conserve his emotion, as had the rural isolation in which he lived. In a city life the four years would probably have blotted out her memory; but where comparison was impossible, and lighter distractions almost unheard of, what chance was there for him to forget the single passionate experience he had known? Among his primitive neighbours Maria had flitted for a time like a bewildering vision; then the great distant world had caught her up into its brightness, and the desolate waste country was become the guardian of the impression she had left. "If thar's a man who has had bad luck with his children, it's Bill Fletcher," old Jacob was saying thoughtfully. "He's been a hard man an' a mean one, too, an' when he couldn't beg or borrow it's my opinion that he never hesitated to put forth his hand an' steal. Thar's a powerful lot of judgment in dumb happenin's, an' when you see a family waste out an' run to seed like that it usually means that the good Lord is havin' His way about matters. It takes a mighty sharp eye to tell the difference between judgment an' misfortune, an' I've seen enough in this world to know that, no matter how skilfully you twist up good an' evil, God Almighty may be a long time in the unravelling, but He'll straighten 'em out at last. Now as to Bill Fletcher, his sins got in the bone an' they're workin' out in the blood. Look at his son Bill--didn't he come out of the army to drink himself to death? Then his granddaughter Maria has gone an' mismarried a somebody, an' this boy that he'd set his heart on is goin' to the devil so precious fast that he ain't got time to look behind him." "Oh, he's young yet," suggested Tom Spade, solemnly wagging his head, "an' Fletcher says, you know, that he's all right so long as he keeps clear of Mr. Christopher. It's Mr. Christopher, he swears, that's been the ruin of him." Christopher met this with a sneer. "Why does he let him dog my footsteps, then?" he inquired with a laugh. "I never go to the Hall, and yet he's always after me."