"Ah, she would," said the ex-keeper thoughtfully. "Hah! he's a bad un; but I didn't think he'd be quite so bad as that to her; for she's a handsome gal, doctor--a handsome gal." "More's the pity," thought Oldroyd, though he did not speak. "It's well for him that I haven't run again him, I can tell you. Don't happen to know where the captain is, do you, sir?" "No, I have not the least idea; and if I had, I don't think I should tell you." "S'pose not, doctor," said the man, with a strange laugh, "seeing what's coming off." "Why; what are you going to do?" "Do, sir," said Hayle slowly, as he leaned on the gate, and looked down the dark path in the wood. "When I was a young man, and made up my mind to trap a hare or a fezzan, or p'raps only a rabbud, I trapped it. P'r'aps I didn't the first time; p'raps I didn't the second or third; but I kept on at it till I did, and I'm going to trap him." "What, Captain Rolph! Make him pay for the injury to your daughter?" "I'm going to see if he'll make it up to her first. If he won't, I'll make him pay." "Make it up! Do you mean marry her?" "Yes; that's what I mean, sir," said Hayle slowly, and then, turning round to face the doctor, and fix him with his big dark eyes. "He shall pay his debt if he don't marry her!" "Do you mean in money--breach of promise?" "No," said the man, speaking to him fiercely. "No money wouldn't pay my gal nor me. He took a fancy to her, and she liked him, and I forgive him for his cunning way of following her when I was laid by. I forgive him, too, for what he did to me. It was fair fight so far, but it was his gun as shot me that night. I didn't bear no malice again him for all that, as long as he was square toward Judith; but he's thrown her off, and I'm going to see him about it." "Man, man, what are you going to do?" cried Oldroyd. "What am I going to do?" roared Hayle, blazing up into sudden fury. "You're going to marry sweet young Miss Lucy, yonder. S'pose eighteen or nineteen years, by-and-by, doctor, there's another Miss Lucy as you're very proud on. You're genteel people, we're not; but the stuff's all the same. I was proud o' my Judith, same as you'll be proud of your Miss Lucy when she comes. What am I going to do? What would you do to the man as took her from you, and when his fancy was over sent her off?" Oldroyd stood gazing at the fierce face before him. "Doctor, when I heerd first as he'd thrown her over, I said to myself, `He's a proud chap--proud of his strong body, and his running and racing: he shall know what it is to suffer now. Curse him, I'll break him across my knee.' Then I stopped and thought, doctor, and made up my mind that he should marry her, and if he don't--" Hayle stopped short, with his lips tightened and his fists clenched; and then, in a curiously furtive way, he turned his face aside, sprang lightly over the gate into the wood, and disappeared from the doctor's sight.