I don't need much light, but I've not been brought up to see through solid black." The doctor was fortunately in, and knew by ample experience what would ease Grannie's pains.

So presently they were hurrying back along the dark road.
As they turned the corner by Vauroque an open doer cast a great shaft of light across the darkness, and there, just as on a previous occasion, on the wall lounged half-a-dozen men, and among them was Tom Hamon, who had come up to have a drink with his friend Peter.
At sight of him, Nance bent her head and tried to shrink into herself as she hurried past.
But Tom had seen her, and the sight of her alone with Gard at that time of night roused the virtuous indignation, and other more potent spirits, within him.
He sprang down into the road, shouting what sounded like a spate of curses in the patois.
Gard stopped and turned, with a keen recollection of the same thing having happened before.

He remembered too how that occasion ended.
But Nance laid an entreating hand on his arm.
"Please--don't!" Her voice sounded a little strange to him.

If he had been able to see her face now he would have found it pallid, in spite of its usual healthy brown bloom.
She stood entreatingly till he turned and went on with her.
"He is evidently aching for another thrashing," he said grimly, as he stalked beside her.
And presently they were in the cutting, and the unnerving vastness of the gulfs opened out on either side.

Gard felt like a blindfolded man stumbling along a plank.
He involuntarily put out a groping hand and took hold of her cloak.