She did not answer the question, but reproved him for the past. It occurred to her again that by protesting now against the incident on the island she might prevent any such folly in the future. She was only considering David--not Margaret, and not the man before her. "Too light-minded," she repeated, "and I’ll tell you for why I say it. On the day after your mother died, you met my sister-in-law and it chanced that I saw you together. She don’t know it and needn’t. But you’d better know. The man who could play child’s tricks at such a time wouldn’t be trusted by any woman, I should think." He wrinkled his forehead and endeavoured to remember. "Whatever did you see that shocked you so much?" She told him and he shrugged his shoulders. "I’m afraid I can’t expect to make you understand that. Perhaps no woman that ever I met but Madge would understand it. Don’t let that come between us. Be just. Moods and whims and silliness after a long cruel strain may happen to men as well as women." "Well, I despise the men, or women either, who could sink to such things." "You were at my mother’s funeral. You know if I felt her loss or not." "Things are as they are," she answered calmly. "’Tis no good us telling any more. My brother and his wife want to come in the parlour, and we’re keeping ’em out." Bartley rose. "I’ll be off then. And mark this: you’ll have to listen to me once more yet before I go. No man worth the name would take ’no’ for an answer under thrice." "Better save your time. You’ll never make me feel different to you. We’re not built to look alike or feel alike at any point. The sooner you know that the better." "Bid ’em good-bye for me and try to think different." He offered his hand and she took it. "I’ll never think different so long as I can think at all," she said. He departed, and Margaret and David saw him go and knew that he had failed. Madge sighed for him; her husband showed no emotion. "Come what may come, ’twill be best," he declared. "Rhoda knows her own mind; and that’s more than half the maidens do nowadays." They returned to her and found her sweeping the hearth. "Mr. Crocker have gone," she said. "I was to bid you good-bye from him." Elsewhere the baffled suitor tramped through Dartmoor under conditions of setting sunlight and approaching darkness. Strong winds had scattered the fog of the preceding evening and now a gale shouted along the heath and drove the clouds before it. Flashes of light broke through the west and, like golden birds, floated upward over the dark bosoms of the hills. They reached the ragged summits of the land, revealed the granite there, then seemed to take wing into the sky. *CHAPTER IV* *POINTS OF VIEW*