"Are you alone at Wastralls?" he asked, contrasting in a mind as neat as his body, his trim, small house on the main street of Stowe, with the grey homestead and irregular outbuildings of the lonely farm. "I’ve a woman that do the housework but she go ’ome by night." "Sounds a bit dreary." Dr. Derek was essentially a town bird. The noise of footsteps on the pavement, of voices in the street, was music to him. "Well, it’s what we’m accustomed to," said Byron carefully, "an’ after all we’m pretty and busy. O’ course I got the farm to see to as Missus is ’ere.’ "Yes, yes, of course." "I was wonderin’, sir, if you could send out and let me knaw ’ow she’s gettin’ on. Course, I should be delighted to set by ’er if she knawed me; but, seein’ as poor sawl’s gone past that, and I’ve so much to do, I’m better off ’ome—till I’m wanted." "I’ve no doubt it could be arranged. I’ll speak to Matron about it." "Thank you, sir; an’, of course, anything she want she can ’av, only send in and let me knaw. Money’s no object when it’s ’er life." "You can trust me, Byron. Everything possible will be done for her," said the other gravely, "only, I’m afraid..." The first bulletin that reached Wastralls told Byron to prepare for the worst. His wife was still alive but sinking. That day he went about the farm in a ferment of emotion. Poor Sabina, poor soul, but if she had to die, better now when he was in his prime. She had had a good time and now it was his turn. He trod the fields as blessed souls may walk in Paradise. The dear land, the land he loved deep as Dozmare, was his and he had got it fairly; he had not pushed his wife out of it. Accident had befriended him—oh, happy accident! When he came in from his work, he took down a well-thumbed list and wrote an order for glass, for frames, for certain much-advertised manures and for young plants. The season was advanced and, if he hoped for a speedy result, he must not lose time. The next bulletin, dropping on his happy absorption, gave but little hope that Sabina would see another dawn. She was alive and no more. Byron, who was at breakfast, found his hunger easily satisfied. The letter had been meat and drink. Thoughts, indeed, of a day spent striding over the Cornish moors, of a night in the sacred, haunted solitudes of Rowtor passed through his mind; but, while he was considering them, his glance fell upon the honeysuckle of the porch. Long the pride of Sabina’s heart, its untidy growth had been to him an eyesore. Here then was the outlet for his passionate elation, an outlet, too, symbolic of his mood. With his own hands he pulled it up, digging out the roots so that nothing remained from which a fresh shoot might spring. Jealousy, an old jealousy, the jealousy of the brooding years was in the action. Wastralls, which had been Sabina’s, was to affront him with no memories of a past humiliation. The new Wastralls was always to have been his.