as almost as amazed as
the miller himself when this knowledge came to her ear; for Will had not
breathed his intention to her, and no suspicion had crossed his wife's
mind that he intended to act with such instant promptitude on the
expiration of their contract.

"I doubted I knawed him through an' through at last, but 't is awnly
to-day, an' after this, that I can say as I do," mused Mr. Lyddon over
an untasted breakfast. "To think he runned them awful risks to make you
fast to him! To think he corned all across England in the past to make
you his wife against the danger on wan side, an' the power o' Jan
Grimbal an' me drawed up 'pon the other!"

Pursuing this strain to Phoebe's heartfelt relief, the miller neither
assumed an attitude of great indignation at Will's action nor affected
despair of his future. He was much bewildered, however.

"He'll keep me 'mazed so long as I live, 'pears to me. But he 'm gone
for the present, an' I doan't say I'm sorry, knawin' what was behind. No
call for you to sob yourself into a fever. Please God, he'll be back
long 'fore you want him. Us'll make the least we can of it, an' bide
patient until we hear tell of him. He've gone to Plymouth--that's all
Chagford needs to knaw at present."

"Theer 's newspapers an' Jan Grimbal," sobbed Phoebe.

"A dark man wi' fixed purposes, sure enough," admitted her father, for
Will's long letter had placed all the facts before him. "What he'll do
us caan't say, though, seein' Will's act, theer 's nothin' more left for
un. Why has the man been silent so long if he meant to strike in the
end? Now I must go an' tell Mrs. Blanchard. Will begs an' prays of me to
do that so soon as he shall be gone; an' he 'm right. She ought to knaw;
but 't is a job calling for careful choice of words an' a light hand.
Wonder is to me he didn't tell her hisself. But he never does what
you'd count 'pon his doing."

"You won't tell Billy, faither, will 'e? Ban't no call for that."

"I won't tell him, certainly not; but Blee 's a ferret when a thing 's
hid. A detective mind theer is to Billy. How would it do to tell un
right away an' put un 'pon his honour to say nothing?"

"He mustn't knaw; he mustn't knaw. He couldn't keep a secret like
that if you gived un fifty pounds to keep it. So soon tell a town-crier
as him."

"Then us won't," promised Mr. Lyddon, and ten minutes after he proceeded
to Mrs. Blanchard's cottage with the news. His first hasty survey of the
po