“No—­not as the world counts illness.  If remorse and shame and repentance can be called illness, I have my share.  Ill deeds of more kinds than one are coming home to me.  Anne,” he added in a hoarse whisper; his face telling of emotion, “if there is one illumined corner in my heart, where all else is very dark, it is caused by thankfulness to Heaven that you were spared.”

“Spared!” she echoed, in wonder, so completely awed by his strange manner as to forget her reserve.

“Spared the linking of your name with mine.  I thank God for it, for your sake, night and day.  Had trouble fallen on you through me, I don’t think I could have survived it.  May you be shielded from all such for ever!”

He turned abruptly away, and she looked after him, her heart beating a great deal faster than it ought to have done.

That she was his best and dearest love, in spite of his marriage, it was impossible not to see; and she strove to think him very wicked for it, and her cheek was red with a feeling that seemed akin to shame.  But—­trouble?—­thankful for her sake, night and day, that her name was not linked with his?  He must allude to debt, she supposed:  some of those old embarrassments had augmented themselves into burdens too heavy to be safely borne.

The Rector was coming on now at a swift pace.  He looked keenly at Lord Hartledon; looked twice, as if in surprise.  A flush rose to Val’s sensitive face as he passed, and lifted his hat.  The Rector, dark and proud, condescended to return the courtesy:  and the meeting was over.

Toiling across Lord Hartledon’s path was the labourer to whom the Rector had been speaking.  He had an empty bottle slung over his shoulder, and carried a sickle.  The man’s day’s work was over, and had left fatigue behind it.

“Good-night to your lordship!”

“Is it you, Ripper?”

He was the father of the young gentleman in the cart, whom Mr. Pike had not long before treated to his opinion:  young David Ripper, the miller’s boy.  Old Ripper, a talkative, discontented man, stopped and ventured to enter on his grievances.  His wife had been pledging things to pay for a fine gown she had bought; his two girls were down with measles; his son, young Rip, plagued his life out.

“How does he plague your life out?” asked Lord Hartledon, when he had listened patiently.

“Saying he’ll go off and enlist for a soldier, my lord; he’s saying it always:  and means it too, only he’s over-young for’t.”

“Over-young for it; I should think so.  Why, he’s not much more than a child.  Our sergeants don’t enlist little boys.”

“Sometimes he says he’ll drown himself by way of a change,” returned old Ripper.

“Oh, does he?  Folk who say it never do it.  I should whip it out of him.”

“He’s never been the same since the lord’s death that time.  He’s always frightened:  gets fancying things, and saying sometimes he sees his shadder.”