The lover spoke and Margaret did not contradict him. Bartley, though he could arrive at fairly accurate estimates of character as a rule, proved blind where Rhoda Bowden was concerned. He had judged her better in the past; but now he only loved her and erred accordingly. "Trust to her; tell her," he advised. "She can do anything with David." And Margaret, knowing perfectly well that Billy Screech’s opinion of her sister-in-law was the more correct, yet took some heart of hope from Mr. Crocker’s advice and promised him to do as he suggested. "But what am I to waste your time?" she asked. "Such a happy woman as I be. To see such a foreign thing as a tear on my cheek! No wonder you was surprised. ’Twas all about nothing really and I’m ashamed of myself. Now let’s talk of you. When be you coming up again to tell us more about Canada?" "I’ve forgot all about it," he answered. "The question is, when am I going to ask Rhoda to go there with me? I feel ’twill be do or die next time. But I can’t wait much longer. Then there’s my mother. She’ll be gone by October, they say. ’Tis curious how she hankers after that man, Charles Moses, now. And I’m sure he’s terrible kind. Comes in when he can and reads the Bible to her by the hour. Mr. Merle’s very good too. But she’d rather have Moses than anybody." "There’s you." "Yes--me first, poor dear. I’ve scraped the skin off my throat, as you can hear. I was reading to her till three o’clock this morning. Then, thank God, she got off to sleep." They had reached the home of Dorcas and there parted. Margaret went in and Mr. Crocker, with a resolution recently made and carefully concealed from her, proceeded towards Sheepstor. He had decided to speak to David, and since, knowing himself tolerably well, he guessed that time might very easily destroy this intention, Bartley proceeded then and there to the way by which Bowden would return to his home. In a dingle not very far from Dennycoombe he waited, and after two lonely hours, during which he considered the probable futility of his intention, David came along. He was in good spirits and asked his old adversary to return home with him for a cup of tea. "I know you’ll need no second bidding," he said, "for my wife have told me about your fancy for Rhoda, and though I can’t further it, I’ll not stand in the way if ’tis to be. You’d better come and tell her some more about foreign parts: she likes that better than courting. If any man ever wins her, ’twill have to be a wild man of the woods, I reckon."