"I’ll kiss _you_ in a minute--and not on the hand neither!" he laughed. "And ’twill be for punishment, not payment, if you can say such hard things to me. No, I’m not married, worse luck; but you oughtn’t to throw it in my face like that, for ’tis no fault of mine, I’m sure." "I’d be happier than any woman ever was on Dartmoor, I do think, if she’d take you." "You’ve done all you could--so’s David. But there’s no more in your power. If I can’t rise to the skill to win her, then so much the worse for me." "Come and do a kind thing," she said suddenly. "Come and explain to my dear mother this wonder you’ve found out. Nobody but you ever would have been so clever as to do it." "And may I come home and have supper with you and Rhoda afterwards as a reward?" "And welcome," she answered. "There’s a moon and everything. I wish to God she’d let me go out walking in the dark with her afterwards." "Perhaps she might. She took walks with Mr. Snell." "Not by moonlight? No--no, ’tis all waste of time and hope and sense. But, good Lord! if she’s so frosty under the summer sun, what must she be in moonlight? Freezing cold enough to make a man’s heart stand still!" "Perhaps ’tis all the other way and the dark hours soften her," suggested Margaret. They rose and she brushed his back, which was covered with scraps of leaf and moss. Presently they moved away together towards Coombeshead; and then from her lair in a brake fifty yards distant, Rhoda departed to return home. Their speech had been entirely hidden from her, but their actions were all observed; and their actions, unlit by the spirit that informed them, left her soul dark. Mr. Crocker, on second thoughts, decided that he would not sup at ’Meavy Cot’ until David came back, and Madge went her way alone after bringing large comfort and peace to Mrs. Stanbury. She was full of the incident when she came back to Rhoda, and gave her silent and sceptical listener the true account of the meeting by Meavy. *CHAPTER IX* *DARKNESS AT ’THE CORNER HOUSE’* As time advanced even the least observant took note of an increasing gloom that hung over Reuben Shillabeer. It fluctuated but set steadily in upon him. He grew more silent and more fanatical where matters of religion formed the topic. He talked of giving up ’The Corner House.’ He declared that had it been in his power, he would long since have emulated the bold Bendigo and preached to his fellow men. "I can’t do that, along of having no flow of words," said Mr. Shillabeer moodily. "Speech in the pulpit manner have been denied to me. All the same, I may have done more for the Lord than any of you men know about." He addressed a Saturday night bar and reduced most of those who listened to an embarrassed silence.