Presently he looked at his watch and marked that the time of meeting was nearly come. Whereupon he donned his coat, made tidy his neckcloth, handed his fork to a labourer, and left the working party. He strolled slowly up the coomb along the way that she must approach, while she left her hiding-place and set out to meet him. He shook hands, but he did not kiss her, and he did not look into her eyes. Instead, he evaded her own glance, spoke quickly, and walked quickly in unconscious obedience to his own mental turmoil. "I can't run," she said. "If you want me to hear what you're saying, Timothy, you must go slower, or else sit down in the hedge." "It's terrible," he answered. "It's terrible, and it's made an old man of me. But some things you seem to know from the first are true, and some you seem to know are not. And when first I heard it I said to myself, t 'Tis a damned lie of a wicked and venomous man'; but then, with time and thought, and God knows how many sleepless nights, I got to see 'twas true enough. And why wasn't I told? I ask you that. Why wasn't I told?" Her heart sank and her head grew giddy. She translated this speech with lightning intuition, and knew too well all that it must mean. It explained his increasing coolness, his absences and evasions. It signified that he had changed his mind upon learning the secret of the Linterns. A natural feminine, histrionic instinct made her pretend utmost astonishment, though she doubted whether it would deceive him. "What you're talking about I haven't the slightest idea," she said. "But if you have a grievance, so have I--and more than one. You wasn't used to order me here and there six weeks ago. 'Twas you that would come and see me then; now I've got to weary my legs to tramp to do your bidding." He paid no heed to her protest. "If you don't understand, then you must, and before we part, too. I can't go on like this. No living man could do it. I called twice to see your mother about it, for it seemed to me that 'twas more seemly I should speak to her than to you; but when I faced her I couldn't open my mouth, much as I wanted to do so. She shook me almost, and I'd have been thankful to be shook; but 'tis the craft and cunning of the thing that's too much for me. I've been hoodwinked in this, and no doubt laughed at behind my back. That's what's made me feel as I do now. I waited and hoped on, and loved you for years, and saw you chuck two other men, and found I'd got you at last, and reckoned I was well rewarded for all my patience; and--then--then--this----"