And then—­after a full year was told—­happened the next thing.  I well mind the morning Jenny come over to me, where I was digging a bit of manure into my garden against seed planting.  A March day it was, with a soft mist on the moor and the plovers crying behind it, like kittens that want their mother.

“Might I have a tell, Mr. Bates?” she said.

“You might,” I answered, “and I’ll rest my back and light my pipe while you do so.”

She was on the way to her aunt’s wash-house, where she worked Mondays.

“’Tis like this,” she said.  “I’ve had a very strange, secret sort of a letter, Mr. Bates.  It’s signed ‘Well Wisher,’ and I believe it’s true.  Thank God I’m sure if it is.”

She handed me the letter and I read it.  There weren’t much to it so far as the length, but it meant a powerful lot for Jenny.  It ran like this: 

Dear Mrs. White, your husband’s working to Meldon Quarry, so don’t you marry nobody else.  Well Wisher.

“Say you believe it,” begged the woman, when I handed her letter back to her.

“Whether ’tis true or not can quickly be proved,” I answered.  “And if it’s true, then Spider’s foolisher and wickeder than I thought him.”

“I don’t care how wicked he is so long as he’s alive,” she said.

“His one excuse for leaving you was to be drownded in the Dart, and if he ain’t drownded, he’s done a damn shameful thing to desert you,” I told her.  “However, you can put it to the proof.  The world is full of little, black, ugly, hairy men like your husband, so you needn’t be too hopeful; but I do believe it’s true.  Of course somebody may have seen his ghost; and to go and wander about at Meldon is just a silly thing his ghost might do; but I believe he’s there—­the fool.”

“Where’s Meldon Quarry?” she asked, and I told her.

“Beside Meldon Viaduct, on the railroad over Okehampton way.  And what the mischief will you say to the wretch if you do find him?”

“Be very, very angry,” answered Jenny—­in a voice like a sucking dove.

“I’m sorry for Bill Westaway,” I said, “He’d have made a much finer husband for you.”

But she shook her head impatiently.

“I hate him!” she vowed.  “I couldn’t say for why, exactly; but there’s something about him—­”

“All’s fair in love,” I told her.

“I only love Nicky and I shall go to Meldon Quarry and not leave it again till he be found,” she promised.  “And don’t tell Mr. Westaway, please.  He’d be properly furious if he thought my dear husband wasn’t drownded after all.”

And at that moment if the miller’s son didn’t come along himself.  A very tidy-looking chap, and a good worker, and a likely sort of man by all accounts.  They left me and walked up the street together; and I heard afterwards what they talked about.

“How much longer are you going to hold off?” he asked.  “You know I won’t let you marry anybody on God’s earth but me.”