"What with you and her--Margaret--I’ve got a lot more than falls to most. Needn’t say nought about you: we’re one; but she’s different. She can’t see so deep and far off as we do; but she can feel more; and she trusts me; and I’m proud of the simplicity of her. Never wants no figures nor nothing. Never asks no questions. Leaves her life in my hands as trusting as the dogs are with you. And ever thinking for me. I said a bit ago as I dearly loved cold rabbit pie, made after mother’s way. Well, the pie to-night was like the Ditsworthy pies. I thought for sure ’twas a present from home; but not a bit of it. She went up-along two days ago and larned the trick of it. If only--but ’twould be mean in me even to name it with such a woman--" "If only what? All the same, I know. There’s compensations against childer, David. Leave that and go on feeling grateful for her goodness; and--and wake up to a bit more too." She spoke suddenly and with no little feeling. An inspiration had come to her--a brilliant thought greater and finer far than her recent solitary imaginings under the moon. "’Wake up’!" he exclaimed. "Whatever do you mean, Rhoda? If I’m not wide awake, who is?" Her ideas struggled within her. She strove to say the right thing, yet almost despaired. He waited during her silence, then spoke again. "Don’t think I’m not grateful to God for such a good wife. I love her more than she knows, or ever will know. I’m even down about her sometimes, when I think she don’t know. Yet what more can I do? If there’s anything, ’tis your bounden duty to tell me." He made the way clear; yet she felt a doubt that if she did speak, he might take it ill. She was frightened--an emotion so rare that she did not recognise it and feared that some physical evil must be threatening her. "I saw Simon Snell not long since," she said. "Didn’t mention it at the time, for ’twasn’t interesting, except to me; but I will now. He gave me a lift on my way to Buckland and said a good few very sensible things, as his manner is. He told me of a saying he heard made by that Screech that married Dorcas. Screech was speaking of you and your wife, and he said you was like a moulting cock and hen sometimes--both down on your luck and didn’t know what was the matter." David laughed. "So much for that then. I’ll tell you how that happened. I fell in with the man--we’re friends of a sort now--and chanced to talk of children. I may have just hinted I was sorry to be without ’em. But that was all. He’s jealous of me as a matter of fact. He’s getting on pretty well too; but he don’t get on as quick as me; and he’s handicapped by his mother and his children." "He spoke of Margaret, too, however." "What he may have heard her say I can’t guess. Nought against her home, that I will swear. Of course, ’tis only human nature to have our up and down moments."