l it do me?" said George Rosewarne pettishly. "I don't
care which of you she marries."

"Then you'll let us go on, dada?" Mabyn cried. "Will you come with us?
Oh, do come with us! We're only going to Plymouth."

Even the angry father could not withstand the absurdity of this
appeal. He burst into a roar of ill-tempered laughter. "I like that!"
he cried. "Asking a man to help his daughter to run away from his own
house! It's my impression, my young mistress, that you're at the
bottom of all this nonsense. Come, come! enough of it, Trelyon: be a
sensible fellow, and turn your horses round. Why, the notion of going
to Plymouth at this time o' night!"

Trelyon looked to his companion. She put her hand on his arm, and
said, in a trembling whisper, "Oh yes: pray let us go back."

"You know what you are going to, then?" said he coldly.

She trembled still more.

"Come, come," said her father: "you mustn't stop here all night. You
may thank me for preventing your becoming the talk of the whole
country."

"I shouldn't have minded that much," Mabyn said ruefully, and very
like to cry indeed, as the horses set out upon their journey back to
Eglosilyan.

It was not a pleasant journey for any of them--least of all for Wenna
Rosewarne, who, having been bewildered by one wild glimpse of liberty,
felt with terror and infinite sadness and despair the old manacles
closing round her life again. And what although the neighbors might
remain in ignorance of what she had done? She herself knew, and that
was enough.

"You think no one will know?" Mabyn called out spitefully to her
father. "Do you think old Job at the gate has lost either his tongue
or his nasty temper?"

"Leave Job to me," the father replied.

When they got to Paddock's Gate the old man had again to be roused,
and he came out grumbling.

"Well, you discontented old sinner!" Rosewarne called to him, "don't
you like having to earn a living?"

"A fine livin' to wait on folks that don't knaw their own mind, and
keep comin' and goin' along the road o' nights like a weaver's
shuttle. Hm!"

"Well, Job, you sha'n't suffer for it this time," Rosewarne said.
"I've won my bet. If you made fifty pounds by riding a few miles out,
what would you give the gatekeeper?"

Even that suggestion failed to inveigle Job into a better humor.

"Here's a sovereign for you, Job. Now go to bed. Good-night!"

How long the distance seemed to be ere they saw the lights of
Eglosilyan