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For, whatever our feelings, Selina had set her face against the new-comer from the first. She started, no doubt, with the old woman’s whiddle that no good ever comes of a person saved from the sea. But as time went on she picked up plenty of other reasons for dislike. Margit took charge from the day she came downstairs, and had a cold way of seeing that her orders were attended to. With about twenty words of English she at once gave battle to Selina, who had bullied us two men from childhood; and routed her. The old woman kept up a running fight for a week before appealing to Obed, and this delay cost her everything. Obed flew in a rage that more than equalled her own, and had the advantage to be unusual and quite unexpected by her. She ran from him to the kitchen, in tears; and thenceforth was a beaten woman, however much she might grumble at the “foreigner” and “interloper.”

For me, I will confess, and have done with it, that before a month was out my interest in this pale foreign woman, who moved about the house so quietly and surely, had grown to a degree that troubled me. That Obed had suspected me before he had any cause made it no easier now to play a concealed game at cross-purposes; and no pleasanter. In the two months that followed I hated myself pretty often, and at times came near to despise myself for the thought that before long I might be hating Obed. This would never have done: and luckily I saw it in time. Towards the end of June I made application to the Board: and left Vellingey in July, to sail for Bombay on board the Warren Hastings, in my old capacity of first mate. My abandoning the field to Obed would deserve some credit, had Margit ever by word or look given me the slightest reason to hope. But she had not; indeed I hoped that she had never guessed the state of my feelings.

Eighteen months passed before I returned to Vellingey–this time on a short leave. Obed had written constantly and with all the old familiarity; a good deal concerning Margit–her health, her walks, her household business–everything, in short, but what I expected and dreaded to hear. “Come,” I said to myself, “five minutes’ start in life and eighteen months in courtship is no such bad allowance for Obed. Perhaps he will allow me now to have my turn.”

I had this thought in my head as I drew near Vellingey in a light gig hired from the Truro post-master. It was a rainy afternoon in January, and a boisterous north-wester blew the Atlantic weather in our teeth as we mounted the rise over Vellingey churchtown. My head being bent down, I did not observe the figure of a woman coming up the village street, but looked up on hearing the sound of her clogs close beside the gig. It was Selina, tearful, carrying a bundle.

“Whatever is the matter?” I asked, on pulling up.

“They’ve turned me to door!” she moaned. “My dear, they’ve turned me to door!”

She was tramping home to her cousins in St. Day parish. Not another night would she sleep at Vellingey–to be trampled on. Of course she accused the “foreign woman “: but I, it seemed, had started the quarrel this time; or, rather, it started over the preparations for my home-coming–some trifling matter of cookery. Selina knew my tastes. Margit professed to know them better. Such are women.

I own that as I sent the poor soul on her way, with a promise that the gig should carry back her boxes from Vellingey and a secret resolve that she should return to us within a week, I could not avoid a foolish pleasure in the thought that Margit deemed my coming of such importance. Then it occurred to me that her position now as a single woman alone at Vellingey lay open to scandal. The sooner I tested my growing hopes, the better.