him that it had been her own determination and absolute
resolve that had created the situation--and she told him that she was
happy for the first time in her life.

But his letter did force her to realise the difficulties of her
position. In writing to Mrs. Bolitho she had spoken of herself as
Martin's wife, and now when she was called "Mrs. Warlock" she tacitly
accepted that, hating the deceit, but wishing for anything that might
keep the situation tranquil and undisturbed. She asked Mrs. Bolitho to
let her have a small room near the big one, telling her that Martin was
so ill that he must be undisturbed at night. Then Mr. Magnus's letter
arrived addressed to "Miss Cardinal," and she thought that Mrs. Bolitho
looked at her oddly when she gave it to her. Martin's illness, too,
seemed to disturb the household. He cried out in his dreams, his shouts
waking the whole establishment. Bolitho, once, thinking that murder was
being committed, went to his room, found him sitting up in bed,
sweating with terror. He caught hold of Bolitho, flung his arms around
him, would not let him go, urging him "not to help them, to protect
him. They would catch him ... they would catch him. They would catch
him."

The stout and phlegmatic farmer was himself frightened, sitting there
on the bed, in his night-shirt, and "seeing ghosts" in the flickering
light of the candle. Martin's conduct during the day was not
reassuring. He had lost all his ferocity and bitterness; he was very
quiet, speaking to no one, lying on a sofa that over-looked the moor,
watching.

Mrs. Bolitho's really soft heart was touched by his pallor and
weakness, but she could not deny that there was something queer here.
Maggie almost wished that his old mood of truculence would return. She
was terrified, too, of these night scenes, because they were so bad for
his heart. The local doctor, a clever young fellow called Stephens,
told her that he was recovering from the pneumonia, but that his heart
was "dickey."

"Mustn't let anything excite him, Mrs. Warlock," he said.

There came then gradually over the old house and the village the belief
that Martin was "fey." Mrs. Bolitho was in most ways a sensible,
level-headed, practical woman, but like many of the inhabitants of
Glebeshire, she was deeply superstitious. It was not so very many years
since old Jane Curtis had been ducked in the St. Dreot's pond for a
witch, and even now, did a cow fall sick or the lambs die, th