"Thank the Lord I waited," he went on. "This was worth waiting for! This be worth chewing over too! I shan't be in no hurry now! I'll bide a thought longer still. Keep up, my old chap! Your master's got a bit of life in him after all--eh?" The other pushed off the arm that had supported him. "Go--go, for God's sake," he cried. "And if you're a man, forget----" "The beauty of it is, that if he'd not quarrelled with me, I should never have found this out," said Weekes gleefully. "You know so much, John, that I'll tell you a bit more now. 'Twasn't my horse, but Daniel Brendon's leg-o-mutton fist, that blacked my eyes and turned my face yellow and blue a bit ago. He felled me with a blow that might have killed me, because I warned him that his wife saw too much of yonder man. And if he'd not done it, I should not have wanted words with the woman, and never been here to-night. So he's brewed his own drink. D'you mark how God works in the world, Prout?" He laughed again, and, waiting for no answer, vanished upon his way. The old man remained trembling and irresolute. Then he turned again and went back and stood opposite Hilary Woodrow's dwelling under the rain. For twenty minutes he waited; then the church clock struck half-past nine, and Susan, with a youth holding an umbrella over her head, arrived. Her friend put down the umbrella, kissed Susan twice, then shook hand with her, and then departed. She entered the house, and a moment later Sarah Jane left it by a back entrance, and slipped into the road. "Be that Mrs. Brendon?" Prout called out. She stopped, and he approached her. "Why, John, whatever are you doing down here? Lucky we met. I can give you an arm up-over. 'Tis a fierce night, seemingly." Through the wild weather they passed, presently breasted White Hill, and bent to the tremendous stroke of the wind. Fierce thin rain drove across the semi-darkness, and where a rack of cloud was torn wildly into tatters, the hunter's moon seemed to plough and plunge upon her way, through the stormy seas of the sky. The wind whistled, but the heath was wet, and the dead heather did not utter the musical, tinkling note that the east wind's besom rings from it. Mr. Prout was very silent. "Be I travelling too fast for you?" she asked him. "No, no," he answered. "I'll ax you not to tell Dan that I went to see the master to-night," she said. He did not reply. "Dan don't understand him like you and me do," she continued. "For God's sake don't talk," he begged. "There's a cruel lot on my mind." "And on mine, for that matter. I'm a wicked, joyful woman, John Prout!" For some time silence fell between them as they were thrust before the wind. "Oh, my God, what a terrible, beautiful world it is!" she cried suddenly. "But cruel difficult sometimes." He could not speak to her.