She braced herself then, swinging round to him with one of her cheerful laughs. "You’ll think I’m daft, I know," she said, looking down at him with dancing eyes, "but I’m right set on seeing Mrs. Thornthet again to-night. We’d a deal to say to each other this morning, but we didn’t finish our talk. I thought I could slip over sand and back before it was dark." Fleming looked perturbed. "It’s over late for that, isn’t it?" he asked. "Light’s going pretty fast an’ all. Hadn’t you best bide till morning, and gang then?" "I don’t feel as I can. I’m set on going to-night. I’ve often been across as late, you’ll think on. I’ll take right good care." "What about tide?" "Not for a couple of hours yet, and I’ve not that much to say. Boat’s ready alongside channel; it nobbut wants shoving off. I’ll be there and back before you can say knife." "Ay, well, then, you’d best be off, and look sharp about it!" Fleming conceded in a reluctant tone. "I’ll have t’lamp put in winder as usual to set you back. Don’t you get clattin’ now and forget to see if it’s there." "I’ll look out for it, don’t you fret. Like as not I’ll never go inside the house. There’s just something I want to make sure of before I sleep." She nodded brightly and began to move away, but he called her back before she reached the door. With the quickness of those who lie long in a sick room, he had noticed the change in her atmosphere at once. Restlessness and impatience were strange things to find in May, and there was a touch of excitement in her manner as well. He looked at her thoughtfully as she retraced her steps. "Is there any news o’ that wastrel lad o’ theirs? Happen he’s thinking o’ coming back?" The words spoken from another’s mouth brought a rush of certainty to her longing mind. She answered him confidently, as if she held the actual proof. "That’s it, father! That’s right." She laughed on a buoyant, happy note. "Our Geordie’s coming home!" "To-night?" Fleming’s mouth opened. "D’ye mean he’s coming to-night?" "Nay, I don’t know about that!" She laughed again. "But it’ll be before so long. I feel as sure about it as if he was knocking at Sandholes door!" "You’ve no call to be glad of it, as I can see," Fleming said, with a touch of fretfulness in his tone. "Are you thinking o’ wedding him after all this time?" Her head drooped a little. "I’m past thinking o’ that, and he’ll have been past it long ago. I’m just glad for the old folks’ sake, that’s all. It’s like as if it was somebody dead that was coming back, so that I needn’t believe in death and suchlike any more. It’s like as if it’s myself as is coming back,--as if I should open door and see the lass I used to be outside." "I’d be glad to see you settled afore I went, but not wi’ an idle do-nowt as’d spoil your life. It’ll be queer to me if Geordie Thornthet’s made much out. He was a wastrel, right enough, for all his wheedlin’ ways."