school, Chris."

She sighed.

"I wish I could die quick here by the roadside, dear Martin, for living
along with you won't be no happier than I am this moment. My thoughts do
all run back, not forward. I've lived long enough, I reckon. If I'd told
'e! But I'd rather been skinned alive than do it. I'd have let the rest
knaw years agone but for you."

Driving homewards half an hour later, Chris Blanchard told Martin that
part of her story which concerned her life after the birth of Timothy.

"The travellin' people was pure gawld to me," she said. "And theer's
much to say of theer gert gudeness. But I can tell 'e that another time.
It chanced the very day Will's li'l wan was buried we was to Chagford,
an' the sad falling-out quickened my awn mind as to a thought 'bout my
cheel. It comed awver me to leave un at Newtake. I left the vans wheer
they was camped that afternoon, an' hid 'pon the hill wi' the baaby.
Then Will comed out hisself, an' I chaanged my thought an' followed un
wheer he roamed, knawin' the colour of his mind through them black hours
as if 'twas my awn. 'Twas arter he'd left the roundy-poundy wheer he was
born that I put my child in it, then called tu un loud an' clear. He
never knawed the voice, which was the awnly thing I feared. But a voice
long silent be soon forgot. I bided at hand till I saw the bwoy in
brother Will's arms. An' then I knawed 'twas well an' that mother would
come to see it. Arterwards I suffered very terrible wi'out un. But I
fought wi' myself an' kept away up to the time I'd fixed in my mind.
That was so as nobody should link me with the li'l wan in theer
thoughts. Waitin' was the hard deed, and seein' my bwoy for the first
time when I went to Newtake was hard tu. But 'tis all wan now."

She remained silent until the lengthy ride was ended and her mother's
cottage reached. Then, as that home she had thought to enter no more
appeared again, the nature of the woman awoke for one second, and she
flung herself on Martin's heart.

"May God make me half you think me, for I love you true, an' you'm the
best man He ever fashioned," she said. "An' to-morrow's Sunday," she
added inconsequently, "an' I'll kneel in church an' call down lifelong
blessings on 'e."

"Don't go to-morrow, my darling. And yet--but no, we'll not go, either
of us. I couldn't hear my own banns read out for the world, and I don't
think you could; yet read they'll be as sure as the service is held."

She said nothi