He was too bitter to be anything but unjust, and Winifred looked sadly at him, thinking of his own troubles, and the misjudging which she had thought might have softened him towards others. She knew nothing of that other trouble which had its grip upon his heart as he glanced round at the bright room with its warm lights, and at Winifred and Frank, thinking angrily that he had cut himself off from her, and another had come in and filled his place. Nobody knew the wild, mad thoughts that were battling with him that night. All that could be seen were four or five people smiling and chatting, the fire crackling and leaping round a log of wood, and throwing dancing shadows on the pretty chintzes, and the bits of quaint old china, and the piano where Bessie was playing soft visionary music with tears in her eyes; for the Squire had liked the dreamy chords, and the girl had gone back to him, as she did more often than they fancied. And yet to one of the number the pleasant and kindly harmony of the hour was full of sharp discords, of things that fretted and jarred him. He made up his mind that he would not come again. He looked reproachfully at Winifred. And yet, as he walked home across the silent fields, on which the moon was casting cold silvery streaks, he felt as he had never felt before, as if he could not marry Ada Lovell. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. "It was in and about the Mart'mas time When the green leaves they were falling." _Old Ballad_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ That afternoon, when Captain Orde fell in with David Stephens, the two men had walked together to within a hundred yards of the Red House. Here, for it was almost dark, Captain Orde struck into one of the fields which would take him to Hardlands, and the other, standing for a moment as if lost in thought, went on through the red mud and the quantities of fallen leaves which had dropped from the hedge-row elms by his side. As he passed along the wall enclosing Mr Mannering's garden, a door opened, and Stokes came out, locking the door after him. David had stopped, and his peculiar figure probably marked him sufficiently even in the waning light, for the gardener said in a slow and rather injured voice,-- "That's you, is it?" "Yes, it's me." "And you'm going to see Faith?" "Yes, I am," said Stephens; and the two men walked on side by side in silence. At last Stokes began again heavily, as if he had been reflecting on the answer,-- "'Twould be a dale better if it warn't you. That's arl I've got to say, and I've said it a dale better." There was another silence before David spoke, with a fire of purpose contrasting strangely with the other man,--