If she were to make an effort, were to tell him, she would certainly suffer for it. He would treat her to some sort of scene and she was tired. She could not remember when she had felt so tired. Her back ached and her head ached, she had even a whimsical feeling that her legs ached. She would not tell him now. The news trembling on the tip of her tongue should wait till, strengthened by her night’s rest, she were able to take his anger and disappointment for granted. She found that she was hungry. What a blessing there was always to-morrow, with a fence of sleep shutting off one day and its troubles from the next. What she needed was a good supper and a long night’s rest. Thank goodness, Richbell would be down before it was light. She, Sabina, could lie abed until the pains had gone out of her bones. In the quiet room the only sounds were the slight movements of the figure at the table, the tinkle of a fork against china, the crackle of dry wood in the grate. Once a tiny explosion, a breaking of heated glass, was audible; but, at the same moment, Leadville rose with a loud scrape of his chair. "You’m eatin’ like a ’adger," he said, in a tone of suppressed irritability and, taking down his gun, began to clean it. The energy of his movements was almost violent. By this oiling and rubbing he was easing the strain on his nerves. Mould and rust grow in that damp climate like the Giant-killer’s bean and Leadville rubbed and polished till the barrel was gleaming darkly in the dull light of the wall lamp, till it caught a red glint from the flaming driftwood. "What be yer gwine to do with your gun?" asked Sabina taking quiet note of this outburst of energy. "Any wild fowl down?" At Christmas stranger birds, sooty-plumaged, web-footed, delicate-fleshed, came in large numbers to the north coast and all men, hind and farmer alike, went out to ’get a duck for dinner.’ The relief of hearty movement seemed to have oiled Leadville’s tongue for, staring down at the last specks of rust, he said dreamily, "I used to think as one day I should shet myself with’n." "Whatever was ’ee gwine do that for?" She had the practical person’s contempt for extravagant talk, moreover she had listened to this threat before, had even expressed her opinion that there ’was cleaner ways o’ dying.’ She began to stack plates and dishes on a tray. "If you can’t ’av what you wanted," said he, still speaking as if only half conscious of what he said, "what’s the good of livin’?" "If you can’t ’av what you want," retorted Sabina, "you should make the best of a bad bargain." "No," he said simply, "I bain’t made that way." She shook her head over his childishness. "You’m a very covechous man," she said. "If you wanted a farm so bad as that, why didn’t you rent’n?"