"You are a headstrong young man," said Mr. Barker, "and you are going to wreck your life. Better bring the woman right down here and I'll marry you and make it legal. Remember, too, that no sin is so dark but it can be washed white by the Blood."
A lusty cry came from the baby in the room above.
Chard's grin became painfully wide. Mr. Barker took a dingy white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. Derek went to the door and opened it. "Phœbe," he said, "show these gentlemen out."
As Chard passed Derek, he said:
"If you think you've heard the last of this you're mistaken. If you think you can live a licentious life here, and not be interfered with you're mistaken. All Mistwell is aroused. . . ."
As soon as she had got rid of the two men Phœbe came back to the parlour, shutting the heavy door carefully behind her, before she spoke.
"Don't you worry, master, for Hughie and me'll stand by ye in spite of these old curmudgeons with all their talk about columbines. I was brung up in a norphan asylum, but I know the world, and I know a gentleman's got to have a little margin. That's what I said to Hughie last night—'a gentleman's got to have a margin if it's ever so.' So they don't frighten me with their columbines."
Derek pitched hay in the field with Hugh all afternoon, and the hard exercise in the heat brought calm to his mind; he smiled at the recollection of the call from Chard and the Reverend Barker. It was good to work among the warm, sun-dried hay; he liked the smell of the baked earth, of the glistening, round flanks of the horses, of Hugh's healthy,
