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said.
    â€œWell, Owen,” Emrys said, “a good number of signatures there were on the Charter last night. And almost no one missing from the meeting.”
    â€œYes,” Owen said, “but a few did not sign. And more would not pay their pennies to join the Association. It was a disappointment.”
    â€œThere will always be some who will not follow others,” Hywel said. “And I myself am a little uneasy, Owen. I could not countenance any violence, mind.”
    â€œThere will be no—” Owen said.
    Gwynneth coughed significantly. “And to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit, Owen?” she asked, smiling sweetly at him.
    Owen flushed and turned his cap in his hands. “Siân,” he said, looking at her, “will you step out with me for some air, then? A lovely evening it is. I won’t keep her out late, Mrs. Rhys.”
    Siân got to her feet and reached for her shawl behind the door. She was twenty-five years old and a widow, but Owen always gave the same assurance to Gran, who was now nodding her approval.
    â€œLet me see now,” Emrys said. “It is half past eight, Owen. Have her home on the dot of nine, is it?”
    â€œAnd not half a minute later, mind,” Hywel added.
    â€œAnd no going up the mountain,” Emrys said as Owen opened the door and stood to one side to let Siân pass him.
    â€œMy watch stopped,” he said. “I left it home in the dresser drawer. And what are you going to do about it, Emrys Rhys?”
    Grandad and Emrys were laughing merrily when the closing door cut off the sound. Siân smiled at Owen.
    â€œImbeciles,” he said, drawing her arm through his. “A couple of comedians. It is time they thought of something new to say, though.”
    Siân laughed outright.
    â€œDid you have a hard day?” he asked her as they walked along the street and turned at the end of it to stroll up into the lower hills above the valley and the river and works and rows of terraced houses. “I didn’t know if you would be too tired to come out.”
    â€œBut the air is lovely,” she said. She drew a deep breath of it. “It feels so good and smells so good after the dust of coal underground all day.”
    â€œYour hair is what always smells good to me,” he said, moving his head closer to hers for a moment. “You wash it every day. I like that about you.”
    Although she bound it every time she went underground, it was always gray with coal dust by the time her shift was at an end.
    â€œDid you see the Marquess of Craille today?” she asked. “He was touring the ironworks with Mr. Barnes, Grandad and Uncle Emrys said. He looks really English, they said.”
    â€œAs blond as they come and dressed up like a toff,” he said. “And Barnes was all puffed up like a peacock, showing him around.”
    Any doubt that Siân might still have had about the identity of the man on the mountain the night before finally fled. The Marquess of Craille was blond.
    â€œI wonder why he has come,” she said. “He has never been here before.”
    Owen shrugged. “For a pleasant holiday,” he said. “To watch all his slaves sweating for him.”
    They were up on the lower hills and turned to look down, hand-in-hand, at the valley below them. The river still looked clean from up here, Siân thought. And peaceful. The sun was setting over the hills on the other side. She tried to put out of her mind the marquess and her terrible dread of what must surely be about to happen. Perhaps this would be the last evening. The last time she would walk in the hills with Owen. Despite herself she felt a welling of panic. She breathed deeply again.
    â€œI don’t think there can be a lovelier place on earth, can there?” she said. The hills had never yet failed to bring her some measure of peace. She had missed them during her years at school with a terrible