The Marshcotes Moor was bounded, on the side remote from the village, by a broad stretch of "intake"—sparsely covered grass land, wrested from the heath by long years of sweat and perseverance. Beyond this again was an undulating valley, scarcely more than a dip in the moor plateau, which was full of rushes and swampy tracts, with here and there a bog. Above this valley lay Gorsthwaite Moor, where ling and bilberry-plants had less of their own way than on the Marshcotes side; great patches of gorse dotted the moor, and the sun never rose, summer or winter, without finding at least a few outstanding spots of yellow on which to shine.

At one corner of this moor, some two miles away from Marshcotes village, stood Gorsthwaite Hall, a fine specimen of the grim architecture in which the old moor squires delighted. The rectangular windows peered out at you, watchful and cold, from under their rugged brows of blackened sandstone. The door, plainly fashioned and massive, seemed to grudge the wonted breadth of entry, though its narrowness was more in appearance than in fact. The round-topped walls that guarded its paved courtyard harboured few of the kindly green sorts of mosses, but they were friends with bleak, grey lichens. The very chimney-stacks looked stiff and unbending, as if they had little to do with the roof that supported them; and the water-butt under the eaves, with its round black belly, was suggestive, in some vague, elusive way, of tragedies half-forgotten.

Yet Griff and his wife were as merry as the old house was sad. The spring had come and gone, and summer had run well on into August, and still they would hug themselves, these two, in the thought of their isolation. There were a couple of attics at the top of the house, well-lighted from the roof, which Griff had knocked into one room and fitted up as a studio. The itch for painting had taken hold of him with more than its old-time vigour, and the one perpetual ground of disagreement between Kate and himself was the fact that he would insist on making some fresh sketch of his wife's face every other day or so.

"What do you find to talk about all your time?" Roddick had snarled one day.

"We live; we don't talk much about it," Griff had assured him, with a laugh that was entirely one of satisfaction.

That was just it. He had known wittier women than Kate, and some that were more beautiful in their own way; but Kate—well, she rounded off his life for him, and there was an end of it.

Mrs. Lomax, who often ran across from the Manor to spend a night or two with them, was speedily convinced that Griff's foolhardy experiment had proved a success. Now and then, indeed, she would throw out tentative warnings to "the children," a suggestion that they should see more people, or a doubt lest presently they might find themselves suffering from an overdose of a very good thing; and to all these hints Griff always made the same response—that they would fly in search of outside help directly the first symptoms of weariness set in.

But the Marshcotes doctor, who had grown grey in friendship with the Lomaxes, used to shake his head when he came away from his periodical visits to Kate. It was no use bothering Griff about it—or, at least, he could find no heart to do it—but not all Kate's brightness of spirits served to hide that underlying weakness of hers from the old man's eyes. Sometimes, as he recrossed the moor to Marshcotes, he would swear softly to himself, in a way ill-befitting the whiteness of his hair, and would murmur that it was a damned shame young Lomax had not come into Kate's life in time to save her.

Griff, when he was not at work, or at play, with his wife, was generally to be found somewhere about the farm. There had been a farm attached to the Manor for many years after his father's death, and he had picked up a good deal of practical knowledge as a lad, which Simeon, his farm-man at Gorsthwaite, helped him to furbish up from day to day. Simeon distrusted his master's interference in these matters, as being "one what nobbut laked at wark," but he was bound to admit, underneath all his sneers, that Griff must have been to the manner born, so kindly did he take to the details of his education.

It was in the middle of August that Lomax, taking a short cut home one morning, discovered a pleasing fact in connection with Gorsthwaite Moor. The moor folk know well enough that gorse never grows on a peaty soil, and few of them guessed that Gorsthwaite, for all its splashes of yellow bloom, had a rich peat-bed on the side away from Marshcotes. Griff, chancing this morning to have his eyes on the bilberry clumps, to see if the second crop of berries would be worth the gathering, saw a rusty spade on the ground in front of him—a long, narrow spade, turned over at the right-hand side perpendicularly to the main face. A little further some crumbling peats were scattered on the top of a reddish-brown gash in the cheek of the moor.

"Simeon," said he to his farm-man, directly he got home, "there's peat to be had for the asking a mile away. Why should I go on paying for the stuff they bring from Cranshaw Moor?"

"It's noan o' th' best, isn't th' Cranshaw peÄt, but I niver heÄrd tell on there being peÄts just hereabouts. Besides, it's ower late i' th' year to dry 'em now."

"We'll see about that. The time of year doesn't matter a button, so long as there is sun enough to dry them. Our stack is not big enough, I fancy, to last us through the winter."

Simeon growled. Your upland labourer is a terrible radical in respect of persons, but hopelessly conservative whenever farming operations are in question.

"Cut peÄts i' August? Ye mud as weel mak hay at Kersmas: th' back-end o' May, or th' for-end o' June—that's when Simeon Hey leÄrned to cut an' dry an' stack 'em; nay, ye cannot get ower what is, an' is to be."

"Can't I? Just go and hunt up a spade, Simeon; I saw one in the lathe not long ago—back of the turnip-chopper, if I remember rightly. We'll go this afternoon."

Mid-day dinner over, Simeon slouched along at his master's heels, like a dog that is loth to accompany an indifferent sportsman. Griff took the spade and set to work at the peat-bed. First, he removed a few inches of the top layer of heather stumps and bilberry roots; then he drove the blade straight down, prized out the sod, and so moved along the whole line from left to right, the upturned perpendicular edge and flat back of the spade shaping clean faces to the peats.

"Ye may know nowt about th' time to cut, but ye frame weel at th' cutting," muttered Simeon, with grudging praise, as he picked up the falling peats and spread them out on the heather.

"And the sun will frame well at the drying, if the sweat of my body just now is anything to go by. Why, man, you don't often get a dry heat like this in June."

"Well, I'm noan saying th' peÄts willun't dry. What I says is, it isn't nat'ral; an', dry 'em or no, there'll no gooid come on't. They willun't burn like good Chirstian peÄts what's been led i' June."

But Griff only laughed, and shed his waistcoat, and went on with the cutting. The crack-crack of guns came to their ears from over Cranshaw way.

"Part shooiting about," dropped Simeon.

"Yes, that must be some of the Frender's Folly party. How far does Captain Laverack's shooting come, Simeon?"

"Fair across to a mile this side o' Wynyates. He's by way o' heving us know he's a tip-topper, is th' Captain; so he mun needs tak Gorsthet Moor, an' a slice out o' Ling Crag Moor, too, as if his own waren't big enow for fifty sich. Sport? Ay, he knows a sight about sport, does yon. I seed him ower this way a two or three day back, an' I fair laughed to see th' legs on him—as thin as a bog-reed, wi' a smattering o' striped stocking ower 'em to keep th' wind fro' bending 'em double-ways."

Griff leaned on his spade, and laughed as he watched Simeon's dispassioned face.

"But he doesn't shoot with his legs. Come now, he may be a decent shot, for all that."

"What, driving th' birds an' sich? Nay, there's no mak o' sport i' driving. He mud as weel sit i' his own back parlour, an' hev th' grouse driven in at th' door. I reckon nowt o' your new-fangled, snipper-legged sporting chaps."

Griff's trust in the weather seemed likely to be justified. In a very few days the peats were dry enough to be set up on end, two and two, one leaning against the other in the form of an upturned V; and, as Simeon had to go to Saxilton to buy six head of cattle, the master saw to the work in person. August was more than half through, but there was no diminution of the heat. Griff had again doffed coat and waistcoat alike; the sleeves of his coarse woollen shirt were rolled up to the shoulder, and a broad leather strap held up his corduroy trousers. He had his back to a man who was approaching him, with a gun under his arm and a dog at his heels; the first Griff heard of his approach was a thin, querulous shout.

"Here, I say, my man. Damn it all!" piped the voice.

Griff arranged his couple of peats to his satisfaction, and turned slowly round.

"I beg your pardon?" he observed. Then he smiled, rather broadly, as he saw the legs of the spokesman, and thought of Simeon's version of the reed shaken with the wind.

"I said, damn it all!"

"Not a particularly original remark, but I don't see why you shouldn't make it. Is that all, sir?" Griff knew, quite as well as his assailant, what was amiss, but he had no intention of relinquishing his peats.

"All, all? No, it is not all. What are you doing on my moor? What do you mean by digging here while the shooting season is on? No wonder we've had poor sport this morning, with you here to frighten every bird for a mile round. Didn't you hear our shots?"

Another figure appeared on the crest of the rise some two hundred yards away, and moved towards them.

"I believe I did, but they seemed a good distance off, and I was too busy to trouble. It is a serious matter, you see, to be short of peats for the winter, and a poor man must make the most of the weather."

The little man in knickerbockers began to jerk himself up and down. The stiff grey hair, close-cropped round the crown of his head, seemed to stick up straighter than ever. For the stranger was not only furious, but a little non-plussed; he could not reconcile Griff's speech and bearing with his occupation and his clothes.

"Do you know who I am, my man?" he sputtered at length.

"Rather too well. Captain Laverack, if I am not mistaken?" Griff's voice was quiet, but the smile had died from his lips, and his eyes showed hard.

"Yes, I am Captain Laverack. Perhaps you know, then, that I have rented the shooting over this moor?"

The little man was tempering wrath with an air of faint irony.

"I know that you played my father one of the lowest tricks I ever heard of. I am pleased to meet you, Captain Laverack; it will do me good to tell you what a rascally little cad I think you."

Laverack was speechless with amazement. Before he could find words, the second stranger had come up. Griff looked hard at the new-comer, and looked again; then he held out his hand.

"How do you do, Dereham?" he said nonchalantly.

Dereham hesitated a moment, then shook the proffered hand with as near an approach to warmth as he ever exhibited.

"Lomax—Griff Lomax—by all that's wonderful! I didn't recognize you at first—how could I, when I suddenly came upon you masquerading as a son of toil? I always thought you were as mad as a hatter, Lomax, and now I know it."

"Lomax? Was Joshua Lomax your father?" interrupted Laverack. His self-assertiveness had crawled away out of sight.

Griff neither looked at him nor answered. The man was too much his senior, he felt, to admit of his knocking him down, and the temptation bore rather heavily on him just now. Dereham stared at them both, and wondered. Laverack shuffled his feet noiselessly among the peat-rubble; twice he made as if to speak, then thought better of it; finally, he turned on his heel, whistled to his dog, and set off across the moor. He turned after awhile.

"Are you coming, Dereham?" he asked.

"Directly. If we miss each other we shall meet at the lodge for lunch?"

Again Laverack hesitated, glancing from Dereham to Lomax, and making a rapid mental calculation as to the chances of Griff's silence.

"All right, one o'clock, sharp," he said, and went forward.

"What the deuce are you playing at, you and Laverack?" asked Dereham.

"Nothing; we don't like each other, that's all. If he asks you, when you rejoin him, how much I have told you—he is sure to do that—say to him from me that the Lomaxes carry their own burdens and never gossip about other people's."

Dereham laughed easily.

"By Jove, it sounds intense; but you always had a twist for intensity, Lomax, so I'm prepared for it.—Do you know, by the way, that Sybil Ogilvie is staying at Laverack's place?" he added, with a swift glance of inquiry.

Griff caught the glance full, but seemed untroubled. Then he looked down at his corduroys, and tightened his leather belt with a pleased chuckle.

"I hope we may meet; she would like me in this sort of rig. There's a good deal of stable-manure on my boots, too, which would round off the idyll. Bah! Dereham, you wasted me a lot of my time, you little people in London."

Dereham lit a cigar before responding, and perched himself on a heathery knoll.

"I always did like you, Lomax," he drawled at last. "You're such an engaging original, and this last piece of foolery suits you better than any you've tried yet. Still that air of the Almighty about you, only a little more so. Where's the poor devil of a woman?"

Griff's face took an ugly shade.

"Whom do you mean?"

"Why, the cattle-dealer's wife—quarryman's—what was it? It would have done your vanity good—or your love, was it? only a matter of terms—to see the way Mrs. Ogilvie sickened when the affair became common gossip in our set."

"Dereham!"

Dereham removed his eyes from their lazy contemplation of the heat-waves dancing across the heather. Something in the other's voice startled him—some odd mixture of trouble and resentment.

"Have I put my foot in it? I'm beastly sorry if I have; I always was too lazy to think before I spoke. Was it—er—a bit serious?"

"Any man who speaks against my wife runs the risk of getting his neck broken."

Dereham changed colour; but he held out his hand with unaffected regret, and—

"Old fellow," said he, "I hadn't the least idea. You'd better kick me and have done with it."

Griff took the proffered hand and tried to laugh.

"All right, Dereham; only, I wish you hadn't."

"Well, yes; I fancy we both do. Coming, Rover, boy!" This to the pointer, who, after much uneasiness, had started off on his own account with a very business-like air.

Dereham, glad of a break in the discomfort, followed hard after the dog. Presently Rover put up a brace, and Dereham claimed one with each barrel. He returned to his former seat, and Rover brought the birds to him, eyeing him the while with encouraging approval.

"I've made my peace with Rover," said Dereham, nodding lazily at the dog. "You never saw his equal for intelligence, Lomax. Before I sighted you this morning, he put up three almost under my nose, and I missed with both barrels. And that dog just turned his head round and said to me, as plain as could be, 'What a fool of a shot you are.' But I've retrieved my good name, haven't I, old boy?"

Rover implied an affirmative with his tail, and Dereham, for lack of certainty as to how he should proceed with his friend, began to stuff the grouse slowly into his game-bag.

"Well?" said Griff at length.

"Exactly. I was thinking that you've improved since I last saw you. By Jove, I like the way you flashed out on me just now! You're like a horse that has been out to grass for a month. Honestly, Lomax, I'm confoundedly glad you have dropped the Ogilvie nonsense. You didn't seem either excited or surprised when I told you how near she is at this moment."

"What is it? There shall the eagles be gathered together—something. You were always the alternate string to her bow."

"Ah, well, I find her excellent comedy, and that is the most you can expect from any woman. That was what irritated me, you know, when you took her in such screaming sincerity. You won't mind my saying, will you, that you were an astonishing fool in that particular?"

"I shan't mind in the least. I like it."

"Too much fetch and carry, too little compensation, unless you took it funnily. The fair Sybil was altogether too fond of pets in the old days."

"Has she changed particularly?"

Dereham grinned pleasantly at his friend.

"She treated you badly, in my opinion, and I'm hanged if I don't give you your revenge now—even at the price of your modesty. When you left town suddenly, after making an intolerable bear of yourself for three months on end, we all prophesied—and Mrs. Ogilvie was sure—that you would come back. But you didn't, and Sybil began to feel it. The others said that she merely missed the most pronounced of those delicate little flirtations of hers, which did no one the least harm in the world—except the odd idiots who took her seriously. But I fancied it was more than that, and I've proved it since. The woman is wild for you; if I were to tell her you were here, she would forget—the interim—would forget every mortal thing except that she wanted you; she'd come——"

"Then for God's sake keep her away!" cried Griff, fervently.

"Her husband died in the spring, you know. Sybil is a changed woman, but she hasn't the heart even to pretend that it is due to his death. She just mopes, Lomax, and if revenge is any satisfaction to you, you've got it—as much as a man could want."

Griff went back through those fevered months—recalled how the touch of her hand had maddened him, how the curve of her baby lips had seemed to be the end and aim of all things. Yet, for the life of him, he could not make a substantial working memory of it now. The thing he had called love showed merely as a spineless, filmy ghost; the thing he knew to be love stood between him and the woman who had seduced him in all but the letter.

"Dereham," he said abruptly, "will you come and see my wife?"

"I was going to ask if I might. It's generous of you to suggest it after——"

"Never mind that. Will you come?"

"Yes; when?"

"To-morrow, if you can get off. Drop in for lunch—I call it dinner now—and we'll give you mutton and apple-dumplings."

"I bar the dumplings, but otherwise you may depend on me. Is your quarrel with Laverack serious, by the way?"

"Yes; it goes back to my father, and that means it is unforgivable.—It will make matters awkward for you?"

"Then let it. Laverack is all very well, but he's not going to stand between you and me. If he doesn't like it, I'll remove my traps to a pub, and spend the rest of my time helping you to farm."