“Well, I’ll think it over,” Lanty answered reluctantly. “By the way, I haven’t had a word yet with the girl. Perhaps I’ll catch her as I go back, though I doubt it’s no use. Good-bye, and I wish to goodness you’d change your minds all round!” He left him at the yard gate, and strode off along the road. On the other side of the Let the tide lapped tenderly. Deep in frowning thought, he was startled by a voice speaking his name, and, looking up, saw Francey Dockeray on the grassy barrier above him. CHAPTER V THE TOOL He saw her for a moment poised against the brooding sky, and then she dropped down the bank to his side. They stood alone on the desolate strip of road twisting whitely between black peat, green mound, and brown sand. Midway from farm to farm they met--a fitting point, it seemed to him, for the peculiar arbitration he had in hand. “Rowly’s at the boat, sir, if you’re wanting him,” she said politely, and he answered with a curt word of thanks. Then--“They’re in a bad way at Ninekyrkes,” he began, without preamble. “They seem gone to pieces altogether, both Wolf and his wife. It’s hard on an old couple, of course, when it comes to losing both their home and their only child.” She looked away to the crag behind, and made no reply. “I’ve just been round the place with the old man,” he went on, “and it was pitiable to see how he kept forgetting he’d got to go. It was like turning the knife in the wound to keep reminding him how things were. It’s hard, as I said. He might have had his last days in peace.” Still she did not answer; only her gaze, turned inland, grew troubled and hard pressed. “It seems so unnecessary!” He felt suddenly impatient before her silent resistance of his efforts. “Lup’s place is here; that’s plain enough to anybody with half a conscience. He’s fond of the old folks, too. It isn’t as if they didn’t get on. Normally, he’d never have thought of leaving them. Can’t something be done? Can’t somebody help?” She gave a sharp sigh, as if forced against her will over old ground already trodden to weariness, and brought her eyes to his as they rested on her full of demand and penetration. “Hadn’t we better be frank with each other, Mr. Lancaster?” she asked gently. “You’ve heard the story--I feel sure of that--and you want to try to talk me round. That’s so, isn’t it?” “I’ve heard some sort of an account--yes; and it looks as if the key of the situation lay with you. Of course, you’ll say it’s no business of mine, and from one point of view it certainly isn’t, but when old friends are in trouble one wants to stretch a hand. I wish you’d tell me why you did it--why you went back on Lup Whinnerah just when he needed you most. You’ll not deny you went back on him, I suppose?” “No, I don’t deny it.” “Why, then, there’s hope!” He smiled with quick relief. “You’re surely not the sort to play down upon a good lad like Lup? You’ll never break up his home for the sake of a whim or a foolish twinge of vanity?”