“Trust me to do what’s right.  Now I’ll go and see after Chris.”

“An’ make it up with Will while sun shines on ’e.  It’s so easy, come gude fortune, to feel your heart swellin’ out to others.”

“We are good friends now.”

“Do’e think I doan’t knaw better?  Your quarrel’s patched for the sake of us women.  Have a real make-up, I mean.”

“I will, then.  I’ll be what I was to him, if he’ll let me.  I’ll forgive everything that’s past—­everything and every body.”

“So do.  An’ doan’t ’e tell no more of them hard sayings ’gainst powers an’ principalities an’ Providence.  Us be all looked arter, ’cording to the unknawn planning of God.  How’s Mrs. Lezzard?”

“She’ll be dead in a fortnight—­perhaps less.  As likely as not I might marry Chris before the next new moon.”

“Doan’t think ‘pon that yet.  Be cool, an’ keep your heart in bounds.  ’T is allus the way wi’ such as you, who never hope nothing.  Theer comes a matter as takes ’em out of themselves, then they get drunk with hope, all of a sudden, an’ flies higher than the most sanguine folks, an’ builds castles ‘pon clouds.  Theer’s the diggin’ of a graave between you and Chris yet.  Doan’t forget that.”

“You can’t evade solid facts.”

“No, but solid facts, seen close, often put on a differ’nt faace to what they did far-ways off.”

“You won’t dishearten me, mother; I’m a happy man for once.”

“Be you?  God forbid I should cloud ’e then; awnly keep wise as well as happy, an’ doan’t fill Chris with tu gert a shaw of pomps an’ splendours.  Put it away till it comes.  Our dreams ’bout the future ’s allus a long sight better or worse than the future itself.”

“Don’t forbid dreaming.  That’s the sole happiness I’ve ever had until now.”

“Happiness, you call it?  ‘T is awnly a painted tinsel o’ the mind, and coming from it into reality is like waking arter tu much drink.  So I’ve heard my husband say scores o’ times—­him bein’ a man much given to overhopefulness in his younger days—­same as Will is now.”

Clement departed, and presently found himself with the cooler breezes of the high lands upon his hot forehead.  They put him in mind of Mrs. Blanchard again, and their tendency, as hers had been, was to moderate his ardour; but that seemed impossible just now.  Magnificent sunshine spread over the great wastes of the Moor; and through it, long before he reached Newtake, Clement saw his sweetheart returning.  For a little time he seemed intoxicated and no longer his own master.  The fires of the morning woke in him again at sight of her.  They met and kissed, and he promised her some terrific news, but did not tell it then.  He lived in the butterfly fever of the moment, and presently imparted the fever to her.  They left the road and got away into the lonely heather; then he told her that they would be man and wife within a fortnight.

They sat close together, far from every eye, in the shade of a thorn bush that rose beside a lonely stone.