As Griff was dressing, on the morning after his discovery of Roddick's secret, there flashed into his brain just a single word.

"Divorce!" he cried. "Why did I never think of that before? Why didn't Roddick suggest it last night? If only Strangeways will do it, we shall have our chance of happiness."

So wonderful was the thought of freedom that he scarcely paused to look on the darker side of the question, to realize what it would mean to Kate to be branded for life.

"You are looking better than I have seen you look for a week past," said Mrs. Lomax, when he came down to breakfast.

"I'm feeling better, mother. Things have been a bit askew with me lately, but there are signs of clearing."

"You don't usually keep your troubles from me, Griff." The old lady was watching him keenly.

He hesitated a moment, then—

"I will tell you all about it to-night," he said.

And she was satisfied.

Breakfast over, he went and saddled Lassie, and rode to Peewit. Kate was looking drearily out of the window facing Marshcotes when he came in. He strode across the room and took her face in his two big hands and kissed her; it seemed so natural that she well-nigh forgot to rebuke him.

"I have not been here since—since that night—because I was blind to your need," he began. "I never guessed that matters had gone so far. Little woman, have they bullied you while I was away?"

In her present mood she could not withstand just that kind of tenderness. She crept into his arms, and hid her face, and fondled him nervously with her hands, as if she were afraid of his escaping her.

"Griff, it is hard to bear," she whispered, and broke down utterly. "So long you have kept away from me—it was right, of course—but——"

She looked up after awhile, and dried her eyes, and put him away.

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

He caught at the underlying suggestion, and for the life of him he could not keep the gladness out of his voice.

"Does he mean to apply for a divorce?" he asked.

"Yes."

He pulled himself together. Surely, if he were a man at all, it was the time to think of her needs, not of his own.

"Kate, I have brought all this on you."

But her hands were over his mouth before the words were half out.

"Don't say that, dear. Do you think I didn't help you to it?"

There was no touch of the outside world then. The frank abandonment of that confession left nothing more to be said, or hoped, or striven for.

The feeling passed, and they struggled slowly back to reality, as children make their first tottering attempts to walk.

"We can fight them, Kate, if we will. They have no evidence," said Griff, with an effort.

"They have evidence. Hannah saw us in the parlour that night."

"There was little to see; and in any case her word won't stand alone."

"No; but Joe is ready to swear—— Griff, I will not tell you. You can guess, can't you? He came back in time to see you—and he means to swear that he saw more. Griff, Griff, how can you make me tell you such things?"

"Are you sure of this, Kate?"

"Yes; quite. He blurted it all out to me a few nights ago in one of his drunken fits. The Marshcotes lawyer has told him what to say, so as best to help Hannah's evidence, and I don't see how we can face it."

A long pause.

"Kate, are you sorry?"

She looked at him—once. A heartful of neglected yearnings came to the front with a rush, and swept her away with them.

"No, no, no," she sobbed.

"Kate," he said, "come back with me to mother. It is the only way. I daren't leave you here an hour longer."

"But, Griff, I can't! Think of how your mother would take it if—— No; I can't! I won't!"

"It's not safe for you here, child; and you are coming," he said peremptorily.

She yielded at last. There did, indeed, seem to be no other way, and she could not bear to let Griff leave her. So together they set off across that well-known strip of heath, Griff leading Lassie by the bridle. Mrs. Lomax was just going out at the Manor gates when they arrived.

"Mother," said Griff, simply, "I have brought Kate to you. You will not bother her with questions, will you? She is tired and ill, and I'll tell you all about it later, as I promised. Will you take her upstairs, and get her to lie down a bit?"

Mrs. Lomax, feeling that some grave trouble was in the air, turned without a word. She took Kate up to her own room, and, because Griff had asked it, she would not let her make excuse of any kind, but forced her to lie down on the bed, with its dimity hangings and its quaint, old-world fragrance of lavender.

"Get to sleep if you can, my dear; you look wearied, and it will be the best thing for you," she said, and went downstairs to Griff.

He was turning a sheet of blue foolscap over and over in his hands. It had come while he was away, and was lying on the hall table when he followed the women indoors. He passed it over to his mother.

"Read that, and don't be shocked, mother," he said quietly.

She settled her spectacles carefully on her nose, and waded through the legal formulÆ.

"I didn't think it of you, Griff," was all she said, as she laid the paper down.

But the lines on her old face were working pitiably, and Griff knew what she was suffering.

He made a clean breast of it then, and the cloud on the mother's face lifted a little.

"We shall not defend the action," he finished.

Again the lines of pain struck across the woman's forehead and about her eyes.

"But why, Griff? Surely, after what you have told me, you are not——"

"Guilty? No; but in the eyes of any court we are. The servant was spying on us—Kate told me so to-day. She saw enough to prejudice our case from the start. Then Strangeways returned in time to see me at Peewit the next morning, so the evidence as to my passing the night there is clear enough."

"Yes; but you can prove that it was impossible for you to get home."

"I can; but why was I there as late as eight o'clock—the snow didn't fall thickly till then—with her husband away? Don't you see, mother, everything tells against us? Besides, we have burnt our bridges now; there can be no return for Kate."

She was silent for a space, then—

"Do you want Strangeways to get the divorce, Griff?" she flashed.

"Honestly, yes. But we have no choice in the matter; the verdict is bound to go against us, and it will spare Kate a great deal if we don't appear at all."

Again Mrs. Lomax was silent.

"Griff," she said, with another sudden glance, "do you intend to marry her?"

"I do, mother."

"Look me straight in the eyes, dear. I don't mean to doubt you, you know, if you will only answer me one question. You kissed each other that night; it was a grave wrong-doing. Was there no worse sin than that, Griff? Are you trying to shield the woman by lying to your mother?"

"Mother, mother! Have I ever lied to you?" There was keen reproach in his voice.

"Never, Griff; but, then, you have never been in love before."

"With my mother—always. I swear to you that we are innocent."

"Thank God for that, dear! I am behind the times in such things. It would have killed me, Griff, to think that you could stoop——"

"Hush, mother! Kate is above it, whatever I may be."

A long silence, broken by the patter of sleet against the window.

"You might have married well, Griff."

"Mother, that is not like you. Leave distinctions of that kind to people who cannot claim five hundred years of moor life."

The old lady rose abruptly and went to the window. Blurred eyes saw through blurred panes some gallant hopes she had entertained on her son's behalf—saw the wife she had planned for him; saw jealousy, too, the fierce resentment of a mother who is robbed of her young; saw, finally, the way that meant happiness for Griff.

"You are right, dear," she said, turning and taking his hands in her own lean, weather-stained palms. "If you will always follow your heart, I don't think it will take you far wrong."

The divorce suit was the talk of the artistic sets in London that winter. Griff's society friends chattered about it; the little people who had fumed at his success laughed stridently at his fall.

"Mr. Lomax," purred Belgravia. "Griff Lomax, you know. Of course you have heard? Isn't it shocking? To think that a man of his genius should stoop to an intrigue with a low quarryman's wife!"

"Kissing an' sich; it's fair shameful," muttered Jose Binns to his cows. "Ye mark my words, beÄsties, there'll no gooid come on 't."

But it was not a matter of the public to Griff Lomax. It was between the woman, the moors, and himself; and he saw full life before him.