r blushed
nor smiled, but seemed absorbed in thought of some kind. But she
resisted his silent effort to draw her away from the path leading to
the house, and turned her face steadily homewards. He murmured soft
words, which she scarcely heard. Right in their way was the stone
trough for the fresh bubbling water, that, issuing from a roadside
spring, served for all the household purposes of Haytersbank Farm.
By it were the milk-cans, glittering and clean. Sylvia knew she
should have to stop for these, and carry them back home in readiness
for the evening's milking; and at this time, during this action, she
resolved to say what was on her mind.

They were there. Sylvia spoke.

'Philip, Kester has been saying as how it might ha' been----'

'Well!' said Philip.

Sylvia sate down on the edge of the trough, and dipped her hot
little hand in the water. Then she went on quickly, and lifting her
beautiful eyes to Philip's face, with a look of inquiry--'He thinks
as Charley Kinraid may ha' been took by t' press-gang.'

It was the first time she had named the name of her former lover to
her present one since the day, long ago now, when they had
quarrelled about him; and the rosy colour flushed her all over; but
her sweet, trustful eyes never flinched from their steady,
unconscious gaze.

Philip's heart stopped beating; literally, as if he had come to a
sudden precipice, while he had thought himself securely walking on
sunny greensward. He went purple all over from dismay; he dared not
take his eyes away from that sad, earnest look of hers, but he was
thankful that a mist came before them and drew a veil before his
brain. He heard his own voice saying words he did not seem to have
framed in his own mind.

'Kester's a d--d fool,' he growled.

'He says there's mebbe but one chance i' a hundred,' said Sylvia,
pleading, as it were, for Kester; 'but oh! Philip, think yo' there's
just that one chance?'

'Ay, there's a chance, sure enough,' said Philip, in a kind of
fierce despair that made him reckless what he said or did. 'There's
a chance, I suppose, for iverything i' life as we have not seen with
our own eyes as it may not ha' happened. Kester may say next as
there's a chance as your father is not dead, because we none on us
saw him----'

'Hung,' he was going to have said, but a touch of humanity came back
into his stony heart. Sylvia sent up a little sharp cry at his
words. He longed at the sound to take her in his ar