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In a night his colour failed him, his cheerful conversation left him, he could "do nought but sit and stare out o' window." A month later he died. Martin had not been long at Borhedden before she came to her conclusions about him, told them to her James, and found that his slow but sure brains had come to the same decision.
The moor had a pathetic attraction for her, because not very long ago a man and a woman had been lost, only a few steps from Borhedden Farm, in the mist lost their way and been frozen during the night. Poor things! lovers, perhaps, they had been.
With both hands she flung all her memories of him into the mist to be lost for ever ... She came suddenly upon a lonely farm-house. She knew the place, Borhedden; it had often been a favourite walk of hers from the Vicarage to Borhedden. The farmer let rooms there and, because the house was very old, some of the rooms were fine, with high ceilings, thick stone walls, and even some good panelling.
She did not herself know how unhealthy it had been, but she knew that she missed the wide fields and downs of Glebeshire, the winds that blew from the sea round Borhedden, the air that swirled and raced up and down the little stony strata of St. Dreot. Now she had been kept indoors, had had no fun of any kind, had looked forward to Mr. Magnus as her chief diversion.
Maggie thought neither of irony nor of pathos, but turned homewards with her mouth set, her eyes grave, her heart controlled. As she walked back the sun broke through the mist, and, turning, she could see Borhedden like a house on fire, its windows blazing against the sky. It was natural that her aunt should wish to return to London as soon as possible.
Maggie, after that flight, faced her empty room with a sense of horror. Was there, truly, then, something awful about her? Was she then awful? First her father, then her aunts, then the Warlocks, now Grace and Paul not only dislike but fright, terror, alarm! Her loneliness crushed her in that half-hour as it had never crushed her since that day at Borhedden.
They drove through the quiet little village, out on to the high road, then down a side lane, the hedges brushing against the sides of the jingle, then through the gates, into the yard, with Borhedden Farm, bright with its lighted windows, waiting for them. Mrs. Bolitho was standing in the porch and greeted them warmly. "You'll be just starved," she said.
"I don't care," he said, looking at her with that curious puzzled expression that she often saw now in his eyes, "I'm sick of this room. That's a bargain, Maggie, you can put me where you like until I'm well. Then I'm off." She had a strange superstition that Borhedden was fated to see her triumph. She had wandered round the world and now was returning again to her own home. She remembered a Mrs.
Where was that fine independent life upon which, outside Borhedden Farm, she had resolved? And these people, her aunts, the young man, the thin spectacled man, what would they think of her? They would name it affectation, perhaps, and imagine that she had acted in such a way that she might gain their interest and sympathy.
She would be patient; as she had once resolved outside Borhedden Farm, so now she swore that she would owe nothing to any man. If she should love Martin Warlock it would not be for anything that she expected to get from him, but only for the love that she had it in her to give. If good came of it, well, if not, she was still her own master.
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