osite John; Denas,
therefore, was at his feet also. Tris could feed his eyes upon her
near loveliness. He could speak to her. He did speak to her, and Denas
looked up with a smile to answer him. When the toast was made Tris
helped Denas to her feet; he put her chair to the table, he put his
own beside it. He waited upon her with such delight and tender
admiration that Roland was made furiously angry and miserable by his
rival's happiness. The poor ape jealousy began meddling in all his
better feelings.

He hung around the cottage until he was freezing with cold and burning
with rage. "And this is Elizabeth's doing," he kept muttering as he
climbed the cliff to the upper town. He could not sleep all night. He
thought of everything that could add to his despairing uncertainty.
The next day was the Sabbath. Denas would go to chapel with her father
and mother. Tris would be sure to meet her there, to return home with
her, to sit again at her side on that bright, homelike hearthstone.

"I wish I were a fisher," he cried passionately. "They know what it is
to live, for their boats make their cottages like heaven." He could
not deny to himself that Tris was a very handsome fellow and that
Denas smiled pleasantly at him. "But she never smiled once as she
smiles at me. He never once drew her soul into her face, as I can draw
it. She does not love him as she loves me." With such assertions he
consoled his heart, the while he was trying to form some plan which
would give him an opportunity to get Denas once more under his
influence.

On Monday morning he went to see Priscilla Mohun. He had a long
conversation with the dressmaker, and that afternoon Priscilla walked
down to John's cottage and made a proposal to Denas. It was so blunt
and business-like, so tight in regard to money matters, that John and
Joan, and Denas also, were completely deceived. She said she had
heard that Denas and Tris Penrose were to be married, and she thought
Denas might like to make some steady money to help the furnishing. She
would give her two shillings a day and her board and lodging. Also,
she could have Saturday and Sunday at her home if she wished.

Denas, who was fretted by the monotony of home duties really too
few to employ both her mother and herself, was glad of the offer.
John, who had a little vein of parsimony in his fine nature,
thought of the ten shillings a week and of how soon it would grow to
be ten pounds. Joan remembered how muc