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The talk ranged over her work—not his, she noticed, and her exasperation increased at his reticence—her uncle's book, travel and music, and to all outward appearances they were on the best of terms. They discovered a shared taste in music that could have been a link between them, Marion thought miserably, but the mutual liking seemed only to drive them further apart, since it brought no melting of the cold barrier which Reeve had presented to her since he kissed her yesterday, and from behind which he treated her with the impersonal politeness of a stranger. It hurt with a pain far sharper than she had yet known. Even quarrelling with him was better than this.

The conversation was brittle, unreal, and it seemed to Marion to go on and on, until her nerves Were stretched to breaking point, and she longed to cry out to him,

'Stop it! Stop it!' Open hostility would have been easier to bear. But instead she ate her fruit and ice cream, and drank her coffee as if nothing untoward was happening, and agreed that she did not mind when he told her he intended to return to the Fleece via Merevale.

'I've got a call to make there, and it'll save another journey if I go on the way back.'

He did not say what the call was about, or on whom, and she did not ask. No doubt it furthered his plan to keep her away from Fallbeck for that much longer, and so delay her phoning round to find out who he had been to see, and what he had said. She settled back in the car seat, hoping he would assume her quietness was caused by tiredness. She closed her eyes and lay back, wishing Willy was there to break the silence that lay like a deep well between them.

It was shattered by a mechanical cacophony that sat Marion abruptly upright in her seat Her eyes flew open in startled questioning and she felt the car slow down.

'Merevale Council's answer to progress,' Reeve said drily, and braked as a bulldozer slewed across the road and trundled away among the purposeful chaos of what appeared to be a new housing estate.

'Extra council houses, in Merevale? Whatever for?' Marion glanced about her curiously.

'An influx into the population, presumably.'

'There aren't all that many.' Marion could see the extent of the small development without moving from her seat.

'Twenty in all, including bungalows,' Reeve informed her casually, and she gave him a quick look.

'You seem to know a lot about them.'

T told you, I make it my business to know these things,' he answered her blandly.

'The houses at the end are almost finished.' She leaned forward, interested in spite of herself. 'Look, those two have got bungalows attached to them. Almost like an annexe.'

'The jargon is "granny houses", I believe.'

'What a sensible idea.' She viewed the novel accommodation with approval. 'Ideal for someone with elderly parents—they could live close, and still have their own home.'

'That's the general idea.'

She shot him a suspicious look. Was he being sarcastic? But his face was devoid of expression as he went on,

'At least here they can allow a generous amount of garden to each house.' He pointed to two semi-detached blocks at the end, which already had their plots of land neatly fenced in. 'They'd be the envy of a good many private developments further south with that amount of room available. They've got a bus service, too.' He waited patiently while a single-decker coach disgorged a small crowd of passengers, before rumbling past them in the direction of Dale End.

'Hello, Mr Harland, have you come to take a look round?'

A square-looking man, shorter than Reeve, and incongruously dressed in a formal navy blue lounge suit and a fluorescent orange tin helmet, above a face that had a distinct air of authority about it, came over to the open window on Reeve's side of the car. Marion nodded recognition to his greeting; he was a local building contractor, and a member of Merevale District Council, and she knew him slightly, though not well.

'Not today,' Reeve shook his head.

Which implied he had been there before, for that purpose. Marion sent him an alert look, but he either did not notice, or chose to ignore it, because he went on, 'we're on our way to see Dick Blythe. We only stopped to give right of way to one of your bulldozers,' he smiled, 'it's bigger than we are.'

'In that case, I'm glad it stopped you,' the other returned.

'Why, was there something you wanted?' Reeve leaned back in his seat as if he had got all the time in the world, and Marion felt a surge of irritation. It suited him to keep her away from Fallbeck for as long as possible while Willy was engaged in carrying on the work he started the day before. And he had not told her he was going to see Dick Blythe. What business could he have with the farmer? she wondered. Surely he had not got his eye on Merevale, as well as the Fallbeck valley? The farm was the one Ben Wade bought his sheep from, the one Gyp had come from. She could not think what might take Reeve there, it seemed unlikely the two men were friends, it would be too much of a coincidence. Unless.... A thought struck her. Reeve might be interested in antiques. Dick Blythe was selling his holding and moving to a smaller house, and it was possible that some of his furniture might interest a collector.

'Only to let you know I've sent off that letter we were talking about,' the helmeted newcomer answered mysteriously, with a guarded look at Marion. She turned to look out of the window on her side of the car, pretending disinterest, but her ears pricked curiously. 'The recipient should find the offer very satisfactory,' he added discreetly.

What offer did he mean? Her alerted senses tingled. Was someone at Fallbeck already losing their nerve and selling out? She burned with indignation at the mere possibility.

'I suppose you don't know yet when the public enquiry is likely to be held?' the man asked.

'Within a day or two now,' Reeve answered, and Marion stiffened. He must be very sure of himself to contemplate such an early date.

'You've had the go-ahead from the local authority, then?' the man pressed interestedly, and Marion held her breath.

'Yes, I phoned them yesterday. They've accepted my report without reservations,' Reeve answered him quietly, and she let her breath out again with a small hiss, like the escape of steam through a safety valve, only this did nothing to relieve the pressure that was building up inside her, and threatened to explode if it did not find an outlet.

'You'll have a fight on your hands,' the Merevale councillor warned.

'Not too hard a one, I think,' Reeve answered with calm assurance. 'I only expect really serious opposition from the one quarter.'

At least he had the good sense to recognise her potential as an opponent, Marion thought with quick triumph.

'And with the right handling, it shouldn't be too difficult to overcome,' he added confidently.

Her face flamed. What did he mean, the right handling? Manlike, he probably thought a few kisses in the firelight would be enough to overcome any opposition he might encounter from her. With shame, she remembered her surrender the day before. But that was yesterday. Today, she felt strong enough to meet him on his own terms again, and Reeve would discover her opposition to be more serious than he expected, she determined. She began to look forward to the public enquiry. There at least she would have a chance to speak her mind, perhaps sway those who were teetering on the edge of indecision, as she felt sure she could have swayed them at the meeting in the bar-room, if only Reeve had not arrived.

'I suppose you mean the Wade family?' the councillor guessed resignedly.

'I mean the Wade family,' Reeve confirmed, and his lips tilted in a slight grin.

Marion stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment. He completely discounted any opposition she might offer, with deflating casualness, brushing her away, she thought angrily, as he might brush at a persistent mosquito, which he found irritating, but ineffective, and without a second thought he concentrated on where he expected the real opposition to come from. The Wade family. Her colour receded as quickly as it rose, leaving her with a frozen pallor that matched the icy fury inside her.

She was scarcely conscious of the car beginning to move again. Scarcely conscious of the tin-helmeted man's cheerful, "Bye for now,' although she heard her own voice automatically responding, and wondered how it was that she could still observe surface courtesies without showing anything of the near-erupting volcano of her feelings.

'It looks as if Dick Blythe's got visitors.' Reeve broke the taut silence between them as he carefully eased the car round the last bend of a track of teeth-rattling roughness, and crawled to a halt in the farmyard close to where men were loading sheep into a high-sided lorry. One was Dick Blythe himself, the retiring owner of the farm. The other two—she caught her breath—were Aaron Wade and Ben.

'The opposition,' murmured Reeve interestedly.

'Only two of them,' Marion corrected him sharply. She would not be dismissed so lightly. Deliberately she opened the door on her side of the car and swung out to join Reeve as he strolled towards the group of men beside the lorry. He gave her a long look, but he made no comment, and she stuck close to his side. Whatever he said to Dick Blythe or to the Wades, she meant to be there to hear it, whether he regarded it as her business or not.

'Hello, Mr Harland. I'm glad you've tamed up, I've just been having a word with Aaron and Ben here.' The white-haired farmer turned to Reeve with every appearance of relief, as if he had not found the exchange of words a cordial one.

'It's no good you trying to get round me. I've told tha' the same as I've told him,' Aaron Wade jerked a not over-clean thumb in Reeve's direction. 'No!' he growled, and gave an angry thwack with his stick at a wily ewe which tried to dodge round his legs and evade the circling dog. 'Get up!' he snarled, and the animal clattered up the wooden ramp to the lorry, giving a lead to the huddle of sheep that the collie was trying to drive in the same direction.

'That's what you're trying to do to us,' Marion turned on Reeve bitterly. 'Drive us like sheep, in the direction you want us to go. And I suppose if we don't all conform you'll lash out, the same as he did.' She did not bother to lower her voice. Aaron Wade's stick had fallen unnecessarily hard, and her flashing eyes made her disapproval plain, but her outspoken criticism served only to inflame the farmer's already unstable temper, and he snarled,

'Here's one as won't be driven, whether tha' likes it or not.' He sent an angry look at Reeve.

'Now, Dad, if you'd just listen ....'

Marion stared at Ben in astonishment. Surely Reeve had not been able to talk the youth round to his way of thinking as well? It did not seem possible.

'I'm not going to listen to anything he's got to say,' Aaron Wade jerked his head at Reeve in a furious gesture.

'I didn't say listen to him,' Ben placated hurriedly, 'but you could listen to Dick Blythe here. You must know what he said makes sense.'

'He's only trying to get rid of his holding.'

'I've already sold my farm,' Dick Blythe interjected, with the air of one who is rapidly running out of patience. 'And if I'd got any sense I'd let you take the sheep and go your own stubborn way,' he said tersely. 'It's to my advantage to let you have them, but don't complain when they lose condition, as they will on the grazing the Fallbeck valley has to offer,' he predicted.

'They'll do well enough.' Aaron Wade was surly.

'Well enough, yes, particularly on the summer grass, but they'll not look like they do now, by this time next year,' their former owner warned. 'They're a bigger strain than the hill sheep you run, and they need better quality feeding. And from what I know of your sheepwalks, they give sparse keep, and they're over-grazed already,' he added drily.

'They'll cope with all I want to put on them,' Aaron Wade retorted. He reached down for a corner of the heavy wooden ramp which also served as a door to close the end of the lorry, and lifted it with a quick jerk of his powerful arms, scarcely giving the collie time to jump clear before he slammed it shut on the last of the sheep. He speeded the dog's retreat with an impatient curse and turned with the steel peg in his hand ready to drop it in place to secure the barrier, as Dick Blythe spoke again.

'You can't have all that much grazing to spare, or you wouldn't have tried to take over the sheepwalks on my land where it adjoins yours,' he observed shrewdly.

'Who told you that?' Aaron Wade shouted angrily. 'I suppose it was him?' referring to Reeve.

Marion listened to the interchange with increasing puzzlement. There was an undercurrent here she did not understand, a link between the three men which she could not place.

'He was instrumental in selling my farm for me, so he had to know,' Dick Blythe answered her one question, and posed another. Why did Reeve want the farm? Surely he was not thinking of settling down there himself?

I've brought the signed letter of intent.' Reeve reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his wallet. 'Although it's not strictly necessary now, because the contract's been signed, and your copy will be in your hands by tomorrow morning's post.' He extracted an envelope and held it out to the farmer, who took it with a nod of thanks and started to speak, only to be interrupted by Aaron Wade's roar of anger.

'So it was you who blocked my way to getting extra land? You.

His action was deliberate, Marion felt sure. Her horror-struck eyes registered it like a slow-motion movie, although in fact it was all over within a split second.

With a furious exclamation the enraged man slung away the steel peg in his hand, and with a quick jerk he pulled the heavy ramp from against the back of the lorry. Once started on the downward swing, its own weight did the rest. Marion heard Ben shout, 'Dad, don't!' Saw the quick jerk of the man's arm as he sent the barrier crashing down, and heard her own voice cry, 'Reeve, look out!'

Reeve glanced round, and his reaction was instantaneous. His quicksilver leap saved him from catching the full force of the heavy wooden ramp, but even so the side of it caught him a glancing blow, as it fell with a resounding crash to the ground.