Not even for Francey had he a farewell; yet she had her moment with him, all unknown. Lifting her blind in the first showing of dawn, she saw him standing on the sea-wall, looking over the bay. He was still in his rough clothes, and the dull shade of the worn stuff was one with the colourless growth of the breaking day. He stood perfectly still, his hands dropped at his sides, his head a little bent, more like a symbol than a breathing human. On either side of him a shadowy wraith of a sheepdog lay crouched with pricked ears, as if watching for an invisible flock to come shouldering out of the dim space beneath. They had scarcely left him a moment during the last few days, clinging like burrs, and all the last night they had whimpered and wept, until in desperation he rose and called them out. Francey knelt at the window with her black hair looped on either side of her pale face, and saw the day come up to the feet of her parting love. He was going, and by a finger she could have held him, but something kept her back that did not seem part of her at all. If she had but known it, the tragedy that was coming was in her hands to force or to withhold; but she did not know. The question was still purely personal, still hung on the one point, whether or not her real happiness lay in the primitive figure on the bank. There were tears in her eyes as she thought of the coming dawns when she might look to find him there and all in vain, but she was prepared to shed them. He would leave desolation behind him, but it would pass. She knew that she was able to let him go, and while she realised that she would not keep him. Yet she longed for a last look, however far, and from her post under the lifted sash she tried to will that he should turn and send his climbing glance over the house to her window, as he had done so many times before, but her fixed gaze did not reach him. Brack would have answered it, she knew--Brack, sensitive, impressionable, ultra-self-conscious; but Lup looked straight before him with his tranquil eyes, and all the hysterical telepathy in the world might have shrieked in his ear and found him deaf. And just for that, just because he did not look, nor heed, nor answer, Francey felt wounded and full of longing; for it is always the man that turns his back that pulls at a woman’s heart. There was a clink of milk-pails on the stone floor beneath, followed by steps on the stairs; and then the door opened, and her mother stood at her shoulder. “You’ll get your death at yon window! For the land’s sake don’t be staring at nowt, like poor Martha at Ninekyrkes! She fair gives me the creeps. It’s about time to be stirring. I’ve been down a bit, and t’ master’s out an’ about. Yon’s Lup, I reckon. What’s he at? Feeling a bit down in the mouth, likely, but he’ll get over it. Westmorland folk be gey ill to shift, but they do rarely when they get going. Lup’ll be a sight better for a change. Canada’ll happen make a man of him--same as Brack!”