“What are you doing here, William Blanchard?  You’re trespassing and you know it,” said the landowner loudly.  “You can have no business here.”

“Haven’t I?  Then why for do’e send me messages?”

Will stood straight and stern in front of his foe.  His face was more gloomy than the sombre afternoon; his jaw stood out very square; his grey eyes were hard as the glint of the east wind.  He might have been accuser, and John Grimbal accused.  The sportsman did not move from his seat upon the log.  But he felt a flush of blood pulse through him at the other’s voice, as though his heart, long stagnant, was being sluiced.

“That?  I’d forgotten all about it.  You’ve taken your time in obeying me.”

“This marnin’, an’ not sooner, I heard what you telled her when you catched Phoebe alone.”

“Ah! now I understand the delay.  Say what you’ve got to say, please, and then get out of my sight.”

“‘T is for you to speak, not me.  What be you gwaine to do, an’ when be you gwaine to do it?  I allow you’ve bested me, God knaws how; but you’ve got me down.  So the sooner you say what your next step is, the better.”

The older man laughed.

“’T isn’t the beaten party makes the terms as a rule.”

“I want no terms; I wouldn’t make terms with you for a sure plaace in heaven.  Tell me what you be gwaine to do against me.  I’ve a right to knaw.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You mean as you won’t tell me?”

“I mean I can’t—­not yet.  After speaking to your wife I forgot all about it.  It doesn’t interest me.”

“Be you gwaine to give me up?”

“Probably I shall—­as a matter of duty.  I’m a bit of a soldier myself.  It’s such a dirty coward’s trick to desert.  Yes, I think I shall make an example of you.”

Will looked at him steadily.

“You want to wake the devil in me—­I see that.  But you won’t.  I’m aulder an’ wiser now.  So you ’m to give me up?  I knawed it wi’out axin’.”

“And that doesn’t wake you?”

“No.  Seein’ why I deserted an’ mindin’ your share in drivin’ me.”

Grimbal did not answer, and Will asked him to name a date.

“I tell you I shall suit myself, not you.  When you will like it least, be sure of that.  I needn’t pretend what I don’t feel.  I hate the sight of you still, and the closer you come the more I hate you.  It rolls years off me to see your damned brown face so near and hear your voice in my ear,—­years and years; and I’m glad it does.  You’ve ruined my life, and I’ll ruin yours yet.”

There was a pause; Blanchard stared cold and hard into Grimbal’s eyes; then John continued, and his flicker of passion cooled a little as he did so,—­

“At least that’s what I said to myself when first I heard this little bit of news—­that I’d ruin you; now I’m not sure.”

“At least I’ll thank you to make up your mind.  ‘T is turn an’ turn about.  You be uppermost just this minute.  As to ruining me, that’s as may be.”