"Well, I know he would; and you must at least allow me to know more about him than you do. And so I ask you whether it is common-sense to tell him what's going to happen, for the sake of a few clod-hoppers, who matter to nobody, or--" "But, but, how long is it to go on? Why do you shrink from doing now what you wanted to do at first?" "I don't shrink from it at all. I only intend to choose the proper time and not give the show away at a moment when to do so will be to ruin me." "'Give the show away,'" she quoted bitterly. "You can look me in the face and say a thing like that! It's only 'a show' to you; but it's my life to me." "I'm sorry I used the expression. Words aren't anything. It's my life to me, too. And I've got to think for both of us. In a week, or ten days, I'll eat humble pie and climb down and grovel to Daniel. Then, when I'm pardoned, we'll tell everybody. It won't kill you to wait another fortnight anyway. And in the meantime we'd better see less of each other, since you're getting so worried about what your friends say about us." Now he had said too much. Sabina would have agreed to the suggestion of a fortnight's waiting, but the proposal that they should see less of each other both hurt and angered her. The quarrel culminated. "Caution seems to me rather a cowardly thing, Raymond, from you to me. I tell you that your wife's good name is at stake. For, since you've called me your wife so often, I suppose I may do the same. And if you're so careless for my credit, then I must be jealous for it myself." "And my credit can go to the devil, I suppose?" Then she flamed, struck to the root of the matter and left him. "If the fact that you're engaged to me, by every sacred tie of honour, ruins your credit--then tell yourself what you are," she said, and her voice rose to a note he had never heard before. This time he did not call her back, but went his own way up the hill. CHAPTER XIII IN THE FOREMAN'S GARDEN Mr. Best was a good gardener and cultivated fruit and flowers to perfection. His rambling patch of ground ran beside the river and some of his apple trees bent over it. Pear trees also he grew, and a medlar and a quince. But flowers he specially loved. His house was bowered in roses to the thatched roof, and in the garden grew lilies and lupins, a hundred roses and many bright tracts of shining, scented blossoms. Now, however, they had vanished and on a Saturday afternoon John Best was tidying up, tending a bonfire and digging potatoes. He was generous of his treasures and the girls never hesitated to ask him for a rose in June. Ancient Mrs. Chick, too, won an annual gift from the foreman. Down one side of his garden ranged great elder bushes, and Mrs. Chick made of the blooth in summer time, a decoction very precious for throat troubles. Now Best stood for a moment and regarded a waste corner where grew nettles. Somebody approached him in this act of contemplation and he spoke.