marked signs; so it will be better for you people to take the first
step."

The farmer's wife spoke to similar purpose and added information that
made Sabina more than uneasy.

"It's about this friend of his, Miss Waldron, that came to see him
backalong," she explained. "He'd talk pretty free about her sometimes
and was very proud of it when he got a letter now and again. But since
she's wrote and told him she's going to be married, he's turned a
gloomier character than ever. He don't like the thought of it and it
makes him dark. 'Tis almost as if he'd been in love with the lady. You
do hear of young boys falling in love before their time like that."

Sabina was on the point of explaining, but did not do so. Her first care
was to see Abel and learn the truth of this report. Perhaps she felt not
wholly sorry that he resented this conclusion. Not a few had spoken of
Ironsyde's marriage before her: it was the gossip of Bridetown; but none
appeared to consider how it must affect her, or sympathise with her
emotions on the subject. What these emotions were, or whither they
tended, she hardly knew herself. Unowned even to her innermost heart, a
sort of dim hope had not quite died, that he might, after all, come back
to her. She blushed at the absurdity of the idea now, but it had struck
in her subconsciously and never wholly vanished. Before the engagement
was announced she had altered her attitude to Raymond and used him
civilly and shared his desire that Abel should be won over by his
father. The old hatred at receiving anything from Ironsyde's hands no
longer existed. She felt indifferent and, before her own approaching
problems, was not prepared to decline the offers of help that she knew
would quickly come when Ernest Churchouse died.

She intended to preach patience and reason in the ears of Abel, and she
hoped he would not make her task difficult; but now it was clear that
Estelle's betrothal had troubled the boy.

She saw him and they spoke together for a long time; but already his
force of character began to increase beyond his mother's. Despite her
purpose and sense of the gravity of the situation, he had more effect
upon her than she had upon him. Yet her arguments were rational and his
were not. But the old, fatal, personal element of temper crept in and,
during her speech with him, Sabina found fires that she believed long
quenched, were still smouldering in the depths of memory. The boy could
not indeed fa