He moved hurriedly away. He had gained a "blessed conviction." But it is very hard to feel as well as to know, that the soul is worth the whole world, the whole "good earth," as Cuthbert truly called it. He came home early in August, with much-improved physical health, to find Godfrey like another man, full of the prospects of the business, and as he shortly expressed it, "out of his hole." Rawdie was in raptures. "He has got along," said Godfrey, "by worrying cats and hiding bones. But he will sleep on your bed, and sit on your slippers. Just look at the sentimental little beggar, cuddling into your waistcoat." Guy sat down when his brother left him, in his old corner in the study, with Rawdie on his knee, and looked round him. The sense of constant effort slipped away from him. "I can _do_ here," he said to himself, in his northern idiom, "I'm used to it. One must pay the price." PART THREE, CHAPTER NINE. THE ARCH-FEAR. One sunny afternoon towards the end of August, Florella was sitting on the wall of old Peggy Outhwaite's garden, sketching a tuft of house-leek that adorned the roof of the ancient and ill-kept cottage. This little homestead, which was Peggy's own, and had belonged to her fathers before her, was tucked into a corner of the wood above the Flete, through which the footpath led up to the Hall; the cottage was reached from that side by a little side-track. The like of Florella had never come into Peggy's life before, and she took to this new kind of creature very kindly, finding her a most attentive listener to Waynflete traditions. Whether in old Peggy, inglorious, though not mute, there rested the soul of a romance writer, or whether, as she herself averred, the Outhwaites knew a deal, she told "Miss Flowra," as she called Florella, more about "t' owd Guy" than any one had ever heard before. She was a true reciter; and while Florella sketched, she would stand before her, and describe the passage of the Flete on that awful night when Waynflete was lost, as if she herself had been standing by. She told her the original legend of the traitor who had betrayed his friend's life, and therefore had "walked" ever since. She mentioned his appearances, and talked about him with a kind of grotesque familiarity as if "t' owd gen'leman" had been in the habit of taking constitutionals about the valley. But now and then her tone deepened. "Eh, my dear," she said, "ye mun look on't aright. A poor lost soul does na' coom back to tempt, but to warn--to warn us fra' sin, Missy. He's boun' to coom, though happen the devil drives 'un. But 'tisna a' can see. T' owd Guy may walk oop till most on us, and we be noon wiser. There's my Jem, puir lad, sees 'un, he do, and Mr Guy, he knaws 'un well." "Did he ever tell you so?" said Florella. "Eh, d'ye think I need tellin'? Eh, there a be. Good day to ye, sir."