tively go towards home. At last
he took a guinea from his pocket, and resolved to put the question to the
hazard. 'Heads I go; tails I don't.' The piece of gold spun in the air
and came down heads.

'No, I won't go, after all,' he said. 'I won't be steered by accidents
any more.'

He picked up his bundle and switch, and retraced his steps towards
Overcombe Mill, knocking down the brambles and nettles as he went with
gloomy and indifferent blows. When he got within sight of the house he
beheld David in the road.

'All right--all right again, captain!', shouted that retainer. 'A
wedding after all! Hurrah!'

'Ah--she's back again?' cried Bob, seizing David, ecstatically, and
dancing round with him.

'No--but it's all the same! it is of no consequence at all, and no harm
will be done! Maister and Mrs. Garland have made up a match, and mean to
marry at once, that the wedding victuals may not be wasted! They felt
'twould be a thousand pities to let such good things get blue-vinnied for
want of a ceremony to use 'em upon, and at last they have thought of
this.'

'Victuals--I don't care for the victuals!' bitterly cried Bob, in a tone
of far higher thought. 'How you disappoint me!' and he went slowly
towards the house.

His father appeared in the opening of the mill-door, looking more
cheerful than when they had parted. 'What, Robert, you've been after
her?' he said. 'Faith, then, I wouldn't have followed her if I had been
as sure as you were that she went away in scorn of us. Since you told me
that, I have not looked for her at all.'

'I was wrong, father,' Bob replied gravely, throwing down his bundle and
stick. 'Matilda, I find, has not gone away in scorn of us; she has gone
away for other reasons. I followed her some way; but I have come back
again. She may go.'

'Why is she gone?' said the astonished miller.

Bob had intended, for Matilda's sake, to give no reason to a living soul
for her departure. But he could not treat his father thus reservedly;
and he told.

'She has made great fools of us,' said the miller deliberately; 'and she
might have made us greater ones. Bob, I thought th' hadst more sense.'

'Well, don't say anything against her, father,' implored Bob. ''Twas a
sorry haul, and there's an end on't. Let her down quietly, and keep the
secret. You promise that?'

'I do.' Loveday the elder remained thinking awhile, and then went
on--'Well, what I was going to say is this: I'