What the impress resembled seemed to have struck Gertrude herself since their last meeting.  ‘It looks almost like finger-marks,’ she said; adding with a faint laugh, ’my husband says it is as if some witch, or the devil himself, had taken hold of me there, and blasted the flesh.’

Rhoda shivered.  ‘That’s fancy,’ she said hurriedly.  ’I wouldn’t mind it, if I were you.’

‘I shouldn’t so much mind it,’ said the younger, with hesitation, ’if—­if I hadn’t a notion that it makes my husband—­dislike me—­no, love me less.  Men think so much of personal appearance.’

‘Some do—­he for one.’

‘Yes; and he was very proud of mine, at first.’

‘Keep your arm covered from his sight.’

‘Ah—­he knows the disfigurement is there!’ She tried to hide the tears that filled her eyes.

‘Well, ma’am, I earnestly hope it will go away soon.’

And so the milkwoman’s mind was chained anew to the subject by a horrid sort of spell as she returned home.  The sense of having been guilty of an act of malignity increased, affect as she might to ridicule her superstition.  In her secret heart Rhoda did not altogether object to a slight diminution of her successor’s beauty, by whatever means it had come about; but she did not wish to inflict upon her physical pain.  For though this pretty young woman had rendered impossible any reparation which Lodge might have made Rhoda for his past conduct, everything like resentment at the unconscious usurpation had quite passed away from the elder’s mind.

If the sweet and kindly Gertrude Lodge only knew of the scene in the bed-chamber, what would she think?  Not to inform her of it seemed treachery in the presence of her friendliness; but tell she could not of her own accord—­neither could she devise a remedy.

She mused upon the matter the greater part of the night; and the next day, after the morning milking, set out to obtain another glimpse of Gertrude Lodge if she could, being held to her by a gruesome fascination.  By watching the house from a distance the milkmaid was presently able to discern the farmer’s wife in a ride she was taking alone—­probably to join her husband in some distant field.  Mrs. Lodge perceived her, and cantered in her direction.

‘Good morning, Rhoda!’ Gertrude said, when she had come up.  ’I was going to call.’

Rhoda noticed that Mrs. Lodge held the reins with some difficulty.

‘I hope—­the bad arm,’ said Rhoda.

’They tell me there is possibly one way by which I might be able to find out the cause, and so perhaps the cure, of it,’ replied the other anxiously.  ’It is by going to some clever man over in Egdon Heath.  They did not know if he was still alive—­and I cannot remember his name at this moment; but they said that you knew more of his movements than anybody else hereabout, and could tell me if he were still to be consulted.  Dear me—­what was his name?  But you know.’