id you to speak."

"Yes; he'd better," put in old Hannah, shaking her head severely at her
husband; and the meal was finished in silence.

Another month had passed, and John Grange's position remained unchanged.
He worked in the houses, and tied up plants by the green walks; but
Mrs Mostyn never came round to stand by his side and talk to him
regarding her flowers, and ask questions about the raising of fresh
choice plants for the garden. In those painful minutes he had fallen
very low in her estimation, and was no longer the same in her eyes, only
the ordinary gardener whom she kept on out of charity, and whom she
would keep on to the end of her days.

John Grange felt it bitterly, and longed to get away from a place which
caused him intense agony, for, from time to time, he could not help
knowing that Daniel Barnett went up to smoke a pipe with James Ellis,
and talk about the garden.

But the sufferer was helpless. He could not decide what to do if he
went away, for there was no talk now of getting him into an asylum; and
in spite of all his strong endeavours and determination to be manly and
firm, he felt that it would be impossible to go away from The Hollows
and leave Mary Ellis.

From time to time Barnett saw little things which convinced him that so
long as John Grange was near he would have no chance of making any
headway with the object of his pursuit, and this made him so morose and
bitter that he would often walk up and down one of the shrubberies on
dark nights, inveighing against his rival, who still did not accept his
position, but hung on in a place where he was not wanted.

"The girl's mad about him," he muttered, "absolutely mad, and--"

He stopped short, thoroughly startled by the thoughts which came into
his mind. It was as if a temptation had been whispered to him, and,
looking sharply round in the darkness, he hurried back to the bothy.
That night he lay awake tossing about till morning. That very day he
had encountered John Grange twice at the end of the long green walk,
with its sloping sides and velvet turf, at the top of which slopes were
long beds filled with dahlias. These John Grange was busy tying up to
their sticks, and, as if unable to keep away, Barnett hung about that
walk, and bullied the man at one end who was cutting the grass by hand
where the machine could not be used; and at last made the poor fellow so
wroth that he threw down his scythe as soon as Barnett had gone, an