"When be you thinkin' to marry again?"

"Never," she answered, straight and at once, halting with a hand on
her hip and eyeing him.

"Dear me; but you will, I hope."

"Not to you, anyway."

"Laws me, no! I don't want 'ee; haven't wanted 'ee these ten years.
But I'd a reason for askin'."

"Then I'm sure I don't know what it can be."

"True--true. Look'ee here, my dear; 'tis ordained for you to marry
agen."

"Aw? Who by?"

"Providence."

Naomi had treated Long Oliver badly in days gone by, but could still
talk to him with more freedom than to other men. Still standing with
a hand on her hip, she let fall a horrible sentence about the
Almighty--all the more horrible in that it came deliberately, without
emphasis, and from quiet lips.

"Woman!" cried a voice above them.

They turned, looked up, and saw the bent figure of a man framed in the
street doorway. This was William Geake, who walked in from Gantick
every Saturday to collect the sixpences and shillings of Vellan's
Rents for its landlord, a well-to-do wine and spirit merchant at
Tregarrick. As a man of indisputable probity and an unwearying walker,
Geake was entrusted with many odd jobs of this kind in the country
round, filling in with them such idle corners as his trade of
carpenter and undertaker to Gantick village might leave in the six
working days. On Sundays he put on a long black coat, and became a
Rounder, or Methodist local-preacher, walking sometimes twenty miles
there and back to terrify the inhabitants of outlying hamlets about
their future state.

"Woman!" cried William Geake, "Down 'pon your knees an' pray God the
roof don't fall on 'ee for your vile words."

"I reckon," retorted Naomi quietly, with a glance up at the
worm-riddled rafters, "you'd do more good by speakin' to the
landlord."

William Geake had a high brow and bright, nervous eyes, betokening
enthusiasm; but he had also a long and square jaw that meant
stubbornness. This jaw now began to protrude and his lips to
straighten.

"Down 'pon your knees!" he repeated.

Naomi turned her eyes from him to Long Oliver, who leant against the
staircase wall with his arms crossed and a veiled amusement in his
face. With a slightly heightened colour, but no flutter of the voice,
she repeated her blasphemy; and then, pulling a shilling from her worn
purse, tendered it to Geake. This, of course, meant "Mind your own
business"; but he waved her hand aside.

"Down 'pon your knees,