undertake any regular daily labour
there. Clement's refusal of Martin resulted from his own weak pride and
self-conscious stupidity; but a more subtle tangle of conflicting
motives was responsible for his action in respect of the elder Grimbal's
invitation. Some loyalty to the man whom he so cordially disliked still
inhabited his mind, and with it a very considerable distrust of himself.
He partly suspected the reason of John Grimbal's offer of work, and the
possibility of sudden temptation provoking from him utterance of words
best left unsaid could not be ignored after his former experience at the
hiving of the swarm.

So he went his way and told nobody--not even Chris--of these
opportunities and his action concerning them. Such reticence made two
women sad. Chris, after her conversation with Martin, doubted not but
that he would make some effort, and, hearing nothing as time passed,
assumed he had changed his mind; while Mrs. Hicks, who had greatly hoped
that Clement's visit to the Red House might result in regular
employment, felt disappointed when no such thing occurred.

The union of Mr. Lezzard and Mrs. Coomstock was duly accomplished to a
chorus of frantic expostulation on the part of those interested in the
widow's fortune. Mr. Shorto-Champernowne, having convinced himself that
the old woman was in earnest, could find no sufficient reason for doing
otherwise than he was asked, and finally united the couple. To Newton
Abbot they went for their honeymoon, and tribulation haunted them from
the first. Mrs. Lezzard refused her husband permission to inquire any
particulars of her affairs from her lawyer--a young man who had
succeeded Mr. Joel Ford--while the Gaffer, on his side, parried all his
lady's endeavours to learn more of the small fortune concerning which he
had spoken not seldom before marriage. Presently they returned to
Chagford, and life resolved itself into an unlovely thing for both of
them. Time brought no better understanding or mutual confidence; on the
contrary, they never ceased from wrangling over money and Mrs. Lezzard's
increasing propensity towards drink. The old man suffered most, and as
his alleged three hundred pounds did not appear, being, indeed, a mere
lover's effort of imagination, his wife bitterly resented marriage under
such false pretences, and was never weary of protesting. Of her own
affairs she refused to tell her husband anything, but as Mr. Lezzard was
found to possess no mone