of any reply.

"Sometimes I half reckon a memory of that blessed boy still makes you
glum, my dear. Is it so? Haven't you forgot him yet?"

As he spoke an explosion, differing much in sound from those which
continued to startle the night, rang suddenly out of the distance. It
arose from a spot on the confines of the orchard, and was sharp in
tone--sharp almost as the human cries which followed it. Then the
distant lights hastened towards the theatre of the catastrophe. "What
has happened?" cried Phoebe, thankful enough to snatch conversation away
from herself and her affairs.

"Easy to guess. That broken report means a burst gun. One of those old
fools has got excited, put too much powder into his blunderbuss and
blown his head off, likely as not. No loss either!"

"Please, please go and see! Oh, if 'tis Billy Blee come to grief,
faither will be lost. Do 'e run, Mr. Grimbal--Jan, I mean. If any grave
matter's failed out, send them bwoys off red-hot for doctor."

"Stop here, then. If any ugly thing has happened, there need be no
occasion for you to see it."

He departed hastily to where a distant galaxy of fiery eyes twinkled and
tangled and moved this way and that, like the dying sparks on a piece of
burnt paper.

Then the patient grey shadow, rewarded by chance at last, found his
opportunity, slipped into the hedge just above Grimbal's sweetheart, and
spoke to her.

"Phoebe, Phoebe Lyddon!"

The voice, dropping out of empty air as it seemed, made Phoebe jump, and
almost fall; but there was an arm gripped round her, and a pair of hot
lips on hers before she had time to open her mouth or cry a word.

"Will!"

"Ess, so I be, alive an' kicking. No time for anything but business now.
I've followed 'e for this chance. Awnly heard four day ago 'bout the fix
you'd been drove to. An' Clem's made it clear 't was all my damn silly
silence to blame. I had a gert thought in me and wasn't gwaine to write
till--but that's awver an' done, an' a purty kettle of feesh, tu. We
must faace this coil first."

"Thank God, you can forgive me. I'd never have had courage to ax 'e."

"You was drove into it. I knaw there's awnly wan man in the world for
'e. Ban't nothin' to forgive. I never ought to have left 'e--a
far-seein' man, same as me. Blast him! I'd like to tear thicky damned
fur off you, for I lay it comed from him."

"They were killing me, Will; and never a word from you."

"I knaw, I knaw. What's wan girl against a