The weather changed as the sun went westerly; the wind sank to a sigh and brought with it rain clouds.  But they were unconscious of such accidents.  Sabina longed for the cliffs again, so they turned homeward by Seaton and Thorncombe Beacon and Eype Mouth.  Their talk ran upon marriage and Raymond swore that he could not wait long, while she urged the importance to him of so doing.

“’Twould shake your brother badly if you wed yet awhile, be sure of that,” she said.  “He would say that you weren’t thinking of the work, and it might tempt him to change his mind about making you a partner.”

“Oh damn him.  Don’t talk about him—­or work either.  I shall never want to work again, or think of work, or anything else on earth till—­till—­What does he matter anyway—­or his ideas?  It’s a free country and a man has the right to plan his life his own way.  If he wants to get the best out of me, he’d better give me five hundred a year to-morrow and tell me to marry you.”

“We don’t want five hundred.  That’s a fortune.  I’m a good manager and know very well how far money can go.  With your money and mine.”

“Yours?  You won’t have any—­except mine.  You’ll stop work then and live—­not at Bridetown anyway.”

“I was forgetting.  It will be funny not to spin.”

“You’ll spin my happiness and my life and my fate and my children.  You’ll have plenty of spinning.  I’ll spin for you and you’ll spin for me.”

“You darling boy!  I know you’ll spin for me.”

“Work!  What’s the good of working for yourself?” he asked.  “Who the devil cares about himself?  It’s because I don’t care a button for myself that I haven’t bothered about the Mill.  But when it comes to you—!  You’re worth working for!  I haven’t begun to work yet.  I’ll surprise Daniel presently and everybody else, when I fairly get into my stride.  I didn’t ask for it and I didn’t want it; but as I’ve got to work, I will work—­for you.  And you’ll live to see that my brother and his ways and plans and small outlook are all nothing to the way I shall grasp the business.  And he’ll see, too, when I get the lead by sheer better understanding.  And that won’t be my work, Sabina.  It will be yours.  Nothing’s worth too much toil for you.  And if you couldn’t inspire a man to wonderful things, then no woman could.”

This fit of exaltation passed and the craving for her dominated him again and took psychological shape.  He grew moody and abstracted.  His voice had a new note in it to her ear.  He was fighting with himself and did not guess what was in her mind, or how unconsciously it echoed to his.

At dusk the rain came and they ran before a sudden storm down the green hills back to West Haven.  The place already sank into night and a lamp or two twinkled through the grey.  It was past eight o’clock and Raymond decided for dinner.

“We’ll go to the ‘Brit Arms,’” he said, “and feed and get dry.  The rain won’t last.”