Martin removed his hand and gasped before the spectacle of what he had
revealed to other eyes. Then, after a silence of fifteen seconds, he
shut his mouth again, wiped his forehead with his hand, and spoke.

"I've been a silly fool. Only she's so wonderfully beautiful--don't you
think so?"

"A gypsy all over--if you call that beautiful."

The other flushed up again, but made no retort.

"Never mind me or anybody else. I want to speak to you about Phoebe, if
I may, John. Who have I got to care about but you? I'm only thinking of
your happiness, for that's dearer to me than my own; and you know in
your heart that I'm speaking the truth when I say so."

"Stick to your gate-posts and old walls and cow-comforts and dead
stones. We all know you can look farther into Dartmoor granite than most
men, if that's anything; but human beings are beyond you and always
were. You'd have come home a pauper but for me."

"D' you think I'm not grateful? No man ever had a better brother than
you, and you've stood between me and trouble a thousand times. Now I
want to stand between you and trouble."

"What the deuce d' you mean by naming Phoebe, then?"

"That is the trouble. Listen and don't shout me down. She's breaking her
heart--blind or not blind, I see that--breaking her heart, not for you,
but Will Blanchard. Nobody else has found it out; but I have, and I know