Billy Blee was the first to find his voice before this sudden apparition.  His fork, amply laden, hung in the air as though his arm was turned to stone; with a mighty gulp he emptied his mouth and spoke.

“Gormed if you ban’t the most ‘mazin’ piece ever comed out o’ Chagford!”

“Miller Lyddon,” said Will, not heeding Mr. Blee, “I be here to say wan word ‘fore I goes out o’ your sight.  You said you’d have law of me if I took Phoebe; an’ that I done, ’cause we was of a mind.  Now we ‘m man an’ wife, an’ I’m just back from prison, wheer I went straight to save you trouble.  But theer ‘s preambles an’ writs an’ what not.  I shall be to mother’s, an’ you can send Inspector Chown when you like.  It had to come ’cause we was of a mind.”

He looked proudly at Phoebe, but departed without speaking to her, and silence followed his going.  Mr. Lyddon stared blankly at the door through which Will departed, then his rage broke forth.

“Curse the wretch!  Curse him to his dying day!  An’ I’ll do more—­more than that.  What he can suffer he shall, and if I’ve got to pay my last shilling to get him punishment I’ll do it—­my last shilling I’ll pay.”

He had not regarded his daughter or spoken to her since his words at their first meeting; and now, still ignoring Phoebe’s presence, he began eagerly debating with Billy Blee as to what law might have power to do.  The girl, wisely enough, kept silence, ate a little food, and then went quietly away to her bed.  She was secretly overjoyed at Will’s return and near presence; but another visitor might be expected at any moment, and Phoebe knew that to be in bed before the arrival of John Grimbal would save her from the necessity of a meeting she much feared.  She entered upon her wedding-night, therefore, while the voices below droned on, now rising, now falling; then, while she was saying her prayers with half her mind on them, the other half feverishly intent on a certain sound, it came.  She heard the clink, clink of the gate, thrown wide open and now swinging backwards and forwards, striking the hasp each time; then a heavy step followed it, feet strode clanging down the passage, and the bull roar of a man’s voice fell on her ear.  Upon this she huddled under the clothes, but listened for a second at long intervals to hear when he departed.  The thing that had happened, however, since her husband’s departure and John Grimbal’s arrival, remained happily hidden from Phoebe until next morning, by which time a climax in affairs was past and the outcome of tragic circumstances fully known.

When Blanchard left the farm, he turned his steps very slowly homewards, and delayed some minutes on Rushford Bridge before appearing to his mother.  For her voice he certainly yearned, and for her strong sense to throw light upon his future actions; but she did not know everything there was to be known and he felt that with himself, when all was said, lay decision as to his next step.  While he reflected a new notion took shape and grew defined and seemed good to him.