nd me and the post, I
cannot get along with the fellows who come there to drink. You
are the only person in Thursley with whom I can talk and be happy."

"Bideabout is not at home."

"I didn't come through the rain to see Bideabout, but you."

"Will you have anything to eat or drink?"

"Anything that you can give me. But I did not come for that. To
tell the truth, I don't think I'll venture on the picture. The
light is so bad. It is of no consequence. We can converse. I am
sick of public-house talk. I ran away to be with you. We are old
chums, are we not, dear Matabel?"

A fire of peat was on the hearth. She threw on skin-turf that flamed
up.

Iver was damp. His hands were clammy. His hair ends dripped. His
face was running with water. He spread his palms over the flame,
and smiled.

"And so you were tired of being at home?" she said, as she put the
turves together.

"Home is no home to me, now you are gone," was his answer.

Then, after a pause, during which he chafed his hands over the
dancing flame, he added: "I wish you were back in the old Ship. The
old Ship! It is no longer the dear old Ship of my recollections,
now that you have deserted. Why did you leave? It is strange to me
that my mother did not write and tell me that you were going to be
married. If she had done that--"

He continued drying his hands, looking dreamily into the flame,
and left the sentence incomplete.

"It is queer altogether," he pursued. "When I told her I was at
Guildford, and proposed returning, she put me off, till my father
was better prepared. She would break the news to him, see how--he
took it, and so on. I waited, heard no more, so came unsummoned,
for I was impatient at the delay. She knew I wished to hear about
you, Mattee, dear old friend and playmate. I asked in my letters
about you. You know you ceased to write, and mother labored at the
pen herself, finally. She answered that you were well--nothing
further. Why did she not tell me of your engagement? Have you any
idea, Matabel?"

She bowed over the turf, to hide her fate, but the leaping flame
revealed the color that mantled cheek, and throat, and brow. Her
heart was beating furiously.

"That marriage seems to me to have been cobbled up precious
quickly. Were you so mighty impatient to have the Broom-Squire
that you could not wait till you were twenty? A girl of eighteen
does not know her own mind. A pretty kettle of fish there will be
if you discover, when