"No beer is even to be bought during working hours," he added sharply. "You can work harder and longer on tea. You may have all the tea, milk, bread and cheese you want, but not a drop of beer, this day or any other day, while at work here. I know what I am talking about. I am no teetotal fanatic, but I've proved the truth of that statement during many a day of more trying labor than digging soft earth." The terms were agreed to without a murmur. The incident, slight as it was, had its bearing on the day's history. Smith was leading his cohort to the attack, when one of the men, apparently bethinking himself, approached Armathwaite and touched his cap. "Beg pardon, sir," he said, "but was ye axin' about Miss Meg?" "Yes." "Well, I seed her goin' up t' moor road nigh on half an hour sen" (since). The Grange itself was the only house on the moor road for many a mile, and it was most unlikely that Marguerite would take a protracted stroll in that direction at such an hour. Somehow, Armathwaite was aware of a chill in the air which he had not felt earlier. It was his habit to disregard those strange glimpses of coming events, generally of misfortune, which men call premonitions. When confronted by accomplished facts, he acted as honor and experience dictated; for the rest, he said, with Milton-- "I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart and hope; but still bear up and steer Right onward." But this all-sufficing rule of conduct had availed him little from the moment he crossed the threshold of the Grange. Right well had it served him in the strenuous years of vigilant governance now so remote; since his coming to Elmdale he seemed ever to be striving against shapeless phantoms. He had sought quiet and content in that peaceful-looking village; he had found only care and gnawing foreboding, brightened, it is true, by a day-dream, which itself left bitter communing when it waned. For he was his own severest censor. He regarded himself as one already in the sere and yellow leaf. Fortune had called him to the high places only to cast him forth discredited, if not humbled. That he, a man who believed he had done with the great world, should think of allying his shattered life with the sweet and winsome creature whose feminine charm was enhanced by a frank girlishness, was a tantalizing prospect which, like the mirage in a desert, merged with the arid wastes when subjected to close scrutiny. With Marguerite near, reason fled, and all things seemed possible; when the thrall of her presence was withdrawn, cold judgment warned him that gratitude for help rendered should not be mistaken for love.