, partly
because she disapproved of the cunning expression on his red, seamed
face and was afraid he might divine her thoughts, and partly because
she recalled the violent things she had said against him to Louis. But
as soon as Thomas Batchgrew caught sight of her the expression of his
faced changed in an instant to one of benevolence and artless joy; the
change in it was indeed dramatic.

And Rachel, pleased and flattered, said to herself, almost startled--

"He really admires me. And I do believe he always did."

And since admiration is a sweet drug, whether offered by a rascal
or by the pure in heart, she forgot momentarily the horror of her
domestic dilemma.

II

"Eh, lass!" Thomas Batchgrew was saying familiarly, after he had
inquired about Louis, "I'm rare glad for thy sake it was no worse."
His frank implication that he was glad only for her sake gratified and
did not wound her as a wife.

The next moment he had dismissed the case of Louis and was displaying
to her the volume which he carried. It was a folio Bible, printed by
the Cornishman Tregorthy in the town of Bursley, within two hundred
yards of where they were standing, in the earliest years of the
nineteenth century--a bibliographical curiosity, as Thomas Batchgrew
vaguely knew, for he wet his gloved thumb and, resting the book on
one raised knee, roughly turned over several pages till he came to the
title-page containing the word "Bursley," which he showed with pride
to Rachel. Rachel, however, not being in the slightest degree a
bibliophile, discerned no interest whatever in the title-page.
She merely murmured with politeness, "Oh, yes! Bursley," while
animadverting privately on the old man's odious trick of wetting his
gloved thumb and leaving marks on the pages.

"The good old Book!" he said. "I've been after that volume for six
months and more. I knew I should get it, but he's a stiff un--yon is,"
jerking his shoulder in the direction of the second-hand bookseller.
Then he put the folio under his arm, delighted at the souvenir of
having worsted somebody in a bargain, and repeated, "The good old
Book!"

Rachel reflected--

"You unspeakable old sinner!"

Still, she liked his attitude towards herself. In addition to the book
he insisted on carrying a small white parcel of hers which she had
not put into the reticule. They climbed the steps out of the covered
market and walked along the market-place together. And Rachel
unmistakably d