They stood leaning on the stone barrier. She was hatless and dressed in white--the gown spoke of her new life. “I just came this afternoon, and I’m staying with friends until I can sell the house--grandfather’s cottage; it’s mine now. I have work to do here--I kept my breaker boys until the last.” The mention of her grandfather sent his memory clanging back to that dark night of Andrew Gregory’s death; but she seemed happy--it was her “country” and she was at home. “I must go back. I came out here for old times’ sake, and I’m glad I saw you here first. I knew you were in Denbeigh.” “How did you know?” “Joe wrote me. He told me what you were doing--the hard work, and all about it. I wrote to him first--I wanted him to know that my going away to do the pictures made no difference, that I still felt bound to him, and that I was ready to marry him at any time.” Her contact with the world had not, then, changed her feeling about Joe, as he had hoped it might. They turned toward town and she walked beside him, with her free stride, her shoulders erect, her head high. “We have never mentioned you--Joe and I--not even when we came here. I came because you have lived here; I look up at these hills of yours every morning and feel that I am among friends. And they have helped me. It is because of you that I am here, Jean. I couldn’t do what I am doing here if it were not for you.” “Please--you mustn’t say that!” He bent his head stubbornly; but he knew that he must respect the line she had drawn between them. “You didn’t go to Mr. Walsh? I thought you had made up your mind to do that.” “I changed it; the evil got into me again. I was not ready. I haven’t got the devil out of my system, but the load’s a little lighter. I can get face to face with myself now occasionally--and that’s something I hadn’t done before. The face has changed a little,” he laughed. “I hardly know myself outwardly.” His dress was that of the poorest labourer; he was coatless and carried his cheap cap in his hand. “Nobody knows me here; I’m always forgetting whether I’m Smith or Jones. Joe allayed all suspicions--he’s been good to me.” “Joe is a good boy; he was always that.” “Jean!” He had paused in the road and the despair Joe’s name had awakened in his heart was in his cry. “He will never let you do it--you don’t believe yourself that he will take you at your word. Won’t you give me my chance?” “No! No!” “You don’t love him--you don’t care for him, Jean.” “That isn’t it--that has nothing to do with it. I treated him cruelly, heartlessly, and it’s no question now of whether I care for him or not.” “If he’s said his last word, that means that he doesn’t care--he doesn’t realize how much you are offering him.” “You are not just to him; he understands it--everything--and he cares--that’s what makes it so hard!”