Underwood was startled by the quiet irony, the security, that were instinct in the girl’s voice, her bearing. She was not the wayward, pleasure-loving Nance he had known; she stood, in some odd way, for all the pride and all the resolution of her race. He had earned his title of “Wild Will” by taking fences which men more sensitively built refused to hazard, and by more doubtful exploits which were laughed at and avoided by the cleaner sort among his comrades. He was good to look at, gay and dominant; yet never, to his life’s end, would he lay hold of the subtle meaning which those of an old race attach to that one word “loyalty.” It was not his fault that his father had been of slight account, except for a gift of money-making; but he had not cared to learn the lessons which the second generation must, if it wished to lay hold of old tradition and make itself a home among the great-hearted, simple gentlemen of Lancashire. He and Nance were alone here on the uplands. A ragged, crimson sunset lingered over the moor. A cock-grouse got up from the heather on their right, and whirred down the bitter wind, chuckling harshly as it went. It was a man’s land, this, full of hills that stepped, sleety and austere, to the red of the stormy sky. A man should have been easily the master here; and yet Underwood knew that he was dwarfed, belittled, by this slim lass of Demaine’s, whose eyes held truth and looked him through and through. “Your excuse, Mr. Underwood?” asked Nance, in a tone as wintry as the hills. He should have known, from the quiet and hungry longing in her face, from the shiver that took her unawares, though the wind’s cold had no part in it, how eagerly she waited for his answer. He had shared her dreams. He had captured a liking that was very near to love; and she was defending the last ditch of her faith in him. If he could make amends, even now--and surely he must, he who was so big and strong--if he could give her one sudden, inspired word that would unravel all the tangle--she was ready to believe in him. Instead, Will laughed like a country hobbledehoy. “My excuse--why, prudence, Nance; and prudence, they say, is a quiet mare to ride or drive at all times. I’ll join your Rising when there’s a better chance of its success. There were few rode out from Lancashire, after all; I’ve met many a stay-at-home good fellow already since I returned from the business that took me south.” He regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. Her tone, her contemptuous air of question, had stung him. Until now he had assumed the manners worn by these people into whose midst his father had intruded, had carried lip-service to the Stuart passably enough, had won his way by conformity to the letter of their deep traditions. And here and now, on the moor that would have none of lies, he had plucked the mask aside, so that Nance shrank back a little in the saddle, afraid of the meanness in his face.