In a day or two he would come back and take up his occupation as if he had never been away.

Walking leisurely into the court-yard, he would lift a besom and sweep, or step into the stable and set to work at stitching up a rent in the old harness.
Willy Ray can hardly be said to have avoided Sim; he ignored him.
There was a more potent relation between these two than any of which Willy had an idea.

Satisfied as he had professed himself to be that Sim was an innocent man, he was nevertheless unable to shake off an uneasy sentiment of repulsion experienced in his presence.

He struggled to hold this in check, for Rotha's sake.

But there was only one way in which to avoid the palpable manifestation of his distrust, and that was to conduct himself in such a manner as to appear unconscious of Sim's presence in the house.
"The girl is not to blame," he said to himself again and again.