"Find work, find work! If that's all you can say you'd better hold your tongue." But though the words were rough the tones grew less fierce, and Susan, finding her restraint was no longer needed, stood up and watched Gilbert Arundel and Joyce pursue the narrow track across the heather till they were lost in the shadows of the gathering twilight. "Do you know your way?" Gilbert asked. "I think I do," Joyce answered; "our shepherd's cottage is on the next ridge, and when we get there we can see our own valley and the tower of the church." "Are you very tired?" Gilbert asked again. "Not very; but I cannot help trembling; it is so silly. Do tell me if that man hurt you." "He gave me a good shaking. What a giant he is! I felt as your Nip or Pip might feel in Duke's clutches if he were angry." "What a comfort we had not Charlotte with us, and that the boys had gone on so far! I hope they will not be very anxious at home." They made but slow progress. Joyce's usually swift, elastic steps were slow and faltering. She took several wrong paths, and they came once to a steep dip in the heather, and were within a few inches of one of those rocky pits which are frequent on the face of the level country about Cheddar and the neighbouring district. Indeed Cheddar itself begins with one of these small defiles, when entered from the top of the Mendip, and the gradually increasing height of the rocks, and the widening of the gorge as the road winds through it, is one of its most striking features. Joyce was so wholly unaccustomed to feel tired and unnerved, that she surprised herself, as well as Gilbert, by sitting down helplessly, and bursting into tears. "Oh! we should have been killed if we had fallen down there. Won't you leave me, and go on to the shepherd's cottage? What can be the matter with me?" she said, sobbing hysterically. Gilbert hardly knew whether distress at her condition, or delight in having her all to himself to comfort, predominated. "Do not be frightened,' he said; we shall get on very well if you will let me carry you." "Oh! no, no," she said, trying to spring up with her accustomed energy. "I will push on again." But although she summoned all her courage, she was obliged to let Gilbert put his arm round her and support her, and finally she was lifted in his strong arms and carried whether she wished it or not. "I shall tire you so dreadfully," Joyce whispered. "If you do, it is the sweetest tiredness I ever knew; you know that, Joyce." Then they went on in silence. Gilbert was still suffering from the treatment he had received at Bob Priday's hands, and they made slow progress. "Just raise your head," he said, after ten minutes' tramp through the narrow track, which he lost at times through the thick tangle of heath and gorse and low-growing bracken. "Raise your head and tell me if you can see the shepherd's cottage. It is getting very dark."