Tetherstones

by Ethel M. Dell

PART II

CHAPTER I
THE STRANGERS

How long she wandered with the child, stumbling through the darkness, Frances never knew. All that she realized and that with a deep thankfulness, was that her guide was quite sure of the way.

They spoke but little during the journey, only now and then the child’s voice, sweet and confident, broke the silence with words of encouragement.

“I’m so glad I found you. . . . We’re nearly there. . . . Granny has a big fire that you can get dry by. . . . And you can come and sleep in my bed. I can sleep with Aunt Maggie. . . . Are you very tired? We shall soon be there.”

And then at last there shone a glare of light in the darkness, and Frances roused herself to speech.

“What is that light?”

“That is Tetherstones,” said the child. “That is home.”

Ah, home! Somehow the words brought the hot tears to Frances’ eyes. She was weak with the long struggle, with the mingled fear and pain and exhaustion of the day. She longed—very desperately she longed—for some safe shelter where she could sink down, and this child spoke to her of home. She could not check her tears.

“Never mind!” said the voice at her side. “Don’t cry! We are just there. Here is the gate!”

Frances fumbled at it, but the child opened it. They went through together and trod the smooth stones that led to the house.

The glare dazzled Frances. She went as she was led, making no effort to guide herself. They came to the porch. She heard the rustle of falling rain upon thatch, and there came to her nostrils the aromatic scent of burning wood. A great quiver went through her. This was Tetherstones—this was home.

The door opened before her. “Come in!” said the child. “We’ll find Granny.”

They entered, and then it seemed to Frances that the light became so intense that she could bear it no longer. She uttered a gasping sound, and fell against the wall. There seemed to be a great many people in front of her, a confusion of voices, and out of the indistinguishable medley she heard a man utter a terrible oath. Then there came a crash, whether within the room or within her brain she knew not. She only knew that she fell, and falling was caught by strong arms that held her up, that lifted her, that sustained her, in all the dreadful tumult in which her senses swam. She turned as one drowning, and clung to that staunch support.

“Bring her to the fire, poor thing!” said a woman’s voice, soft with pity. “Mind how you lift her, Arthur! That’s right, Oliver. You lend a hand!”

Helpless in every limb, she felt herself borne forward, and was aware of a great glow from an open fire. They laid her down before it, and she knew that she was safe. But still, as one who fears to drown, she clung to one of those strong arms that had lifted her.

“Look at that!” said another voice compassionately. “Just like a frightened child! Where did you find her, Ruthie?”

“Up in the old shed near the Stones,” said the child. “I expect she was frightened too. She was lost.”

“Let’s give her some hot milk!” said the motherly voice that had first spoken. “Move a bit, Arthur! I can’t get near her.”

“I can’t move.” It was another voice speaking—a man’s voice, short, decided. “Give me the cup! I’ll see what I can do.”

And then Frances felt the rim of a cup against her lips.

She drank—at first submissively, then hungrily. Her free hand came up to support the cup, and her eyes opened. She looked into a man’s eyes—the hard, steady eyes of Roger’s master.

“Oh!” she said weakly. “It is you!”

“There now! She knows you, does she?” It was not Roger’s master who spoke, but another man beyond her range of vision. “That’s funny, eh, Arthur? You who never look at——”

“Shut up!” said Roger’s master, briefly and rather brutally. “Get out of it, Oliver! Look after the old man!”

He held the cup again to Frances’ lips, and she drank until she drained it. Her eyes remained wide open, fixed upon those other eyes, black-browed and dominant, that had surveyed her so insolently that morning.

A quivering sigh went through her. “I shouldn’t—have come here,” she said.

He handed the cup with an imperious gesture to someone she could not see. “You’re quite safe anyhow,” he said. “There’s nothing to frighten you.”

His voice was deep and very resolute. It had the stern ring of a man accustomed to hard fighting in the arena of life. She wondered a little even in that moment of doubt and uncertainty. Somehow he did not seem to fit his surroundings. He made her think of a gladiator of ancient Rome rather than a farmer in the depths of peaceful Devon.

“I shouldn’t—have come,” she said again, speaking with difficulty. “I am sorry.”

But still her fingers clung to the rough cloth of his coat like the numbed fingers of one who fears to drown.

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for,” he said. “You’re welcome to shelter here as long as you will.” He spoke abruptly over his shoulder. “Speak to her, Mother! She’s scared out of her life.”

“Poor child!” said the woman’s voice. “And no wonder—out there alone in the fog! Who is she, I wonder? Perhaps she will tell us presently.”

The voice was refined. It had a kindly ring, but it sounded tired—too tired for any very poignant feeling. Yet it comforted Frances. It was a homely voice. With a great effort she braced herself for coherent speech.

“I am so sorry,” she said, “to intrude on you like this. I am a visitor here—lodging with Mrs. Trehearn at Brookside. My name is Frances Thorold.”

She heard the child’s voice in the background. “Aunt Maggie, you know the lady. She paints pictures, and she watched you milk the cows. Don’t you remember?”

“Why, yes, of course!” The fresh tones of the rough-haired girl took up the tale. “Of course I remember! We’ll have to get her undressed and to bed, Mother. She’ll die of cold in those wet things.”

They came about her in a crowd, as it seemed to Frances’ confused senses, but Roger’s master kept them back.

“Wait!” he said. “Get a bed ready first! Get hot blankets and brandy! She’s chilled to the bone. Make up the fire, Milly! You, Dolly, light a fire upstairs! Elsie, get the warming-pan! Lucy and Nell, go and draw some water!”

He issued his orders with a parade-like brevity that took instantaneous effect. The crowd melted magically. And still Frances clung to that solid supporting arm as if she could never bear to let go.

Suddenly, it seemed to her that she was alone with him. He bent over her and spoke.

“Tell me! What has frightened you so on the moor?”

His look compelled an answer. Even against her will she would have made it, but a violent shivering fit took her and speech became impossible. He grasped an arm of the old settle on which she lay and dragged it nearer to the fire.

“Don’t be afraid!” he said. “You’re safe enough here. Ruth!”

He raised his voice slightly. The child came and stood beside him—a small child, beautifully made, her sweet face upturned like the face of a flower that seeks the sun. Her eyes were always closed, sealed buds that no sun would ever open.

The man did not look at her. He was closely watching Frances.

“Why did you go to the Stones to-night?” he said.

“I had a dream,” said the child.

“Go on! What did you dream?” The words were peremptory but the voice was gentle. Even in that moment Frances noted the difference of tone.

There was a momentary pause, then the child spoke, her face uplifted like the face of a dreamer.

“I dreamt first about Daniel in the lions’ den, and then it turned into someone up by the Stones—someone who was lost and frightened—and praying for help. So I went to see.”

“Weren’t you afraid?” the man said.

“I? Oh no! There was nothing to frighten me. I knew the way. Besides, God was there,” the child said simply. “It was quite safe. Is the lady better now?”

“She is getting better.” The man reached out and grasped the slender shoulder nearest to him. “Come and hold her hand!” he said.

“May I? Won’t she mind?” The small fingers clasped Frances’ trembling ones. “You are not lost now,” she said softly. “You are found.”

Somehow Frances found her hold transferred. The man rose from his knees. The child nestled down by her side. A sense of peace stole upon her. She knew that she was safe. She closed her eyes to the glare of the fire and lay still. . . .

What happened to her afterwards she never clearly recalled. She was in the hands of strangers who yet in some inexplicable way were friends. They waited upon her, tended her, succoured her with every comfort, till at last the awful shivering passed. She drifted into sleep.

It was a strange sleep of inexplicable happenings—a fevered jumble of impressions, ideas curiously mingled. Daniel in a place of lions—or was it devils?—that was oddly called “The Stones”! Daniel, lost and very frightened, praying for help! And later the coming of an angel to his deliverance!

Yes, she remembered that part of it very clearly. “My God hath sent His angel. . . .” She heard again the voice of a little child singing in the darkness—a child who lived in utter darkness yet knew not the meaning of the word. She called to memory the closed eyes that no sun would ever open, and like a voice within her soul there came to her the words: “You are not lost now. You are found.”

No, she was not lost any longer, but she was ill, terribly ill. There came a time when sleep no longer held her and pain took possession—dreadful intervals when breathing was agony and rest a thing impossible. It stretched out into days of suffering when her very soul seemed to be lacerated with the anguish that racked her body, days when she lay in the cruel grip of a torture such as she had never imagined in all the hardships of her life. Sometimes during those days, it seemed to her that death was very near. She stood on the brink of an abyss unfathomable and felt her soul preparing as it were for that great leap into the unknown. And it had ceased to appall her, as is the merciful way of nature when the body can endure no more. There was nought to fear in Death. It was only pain—earthly pain—that had any power to torment her.

And that power was lessening, hourly, hourly lessening. She was as a prisoner chained to a rock, yet waiting for a sure deliverance. Utter weariness possessed her, a weakness so complete that there were hours together when she would lie, conscious but too exhausted for thought or feeling, and with a dim wonder watch the strangers about her bed.

They were very constantly about her—those strangers. She came to know them by name though she hardly ever spoke to them except to whisper a word of thanks for some service rendered. They would not let her speak from the very outset. They always hushed her into silence whenever she attempted it. And—since speech was very difficult—she came at last to acquiesce dumbly in all that they did.

As the pain lessened and the weakness increased, she grew to lean upon them more and more. There was always someone with her, springing up at her slightest movement to help her. Maggie—the rosy, rough-haired girl who milked the cows—spent two hours each morning and evening after milking-time in ready service upon her, or sitting working by her side. They divided themselves, the six girls, into special watches of four hours each in the twenty-four, each girl serving two hours at a time by day or by night. Frances got to know the time by these watches, for they never varied. Milly, the second girl, used to come to her in the afternoon and in the very early hours of the morning. She liked Milly, who was sensitive and anxious to please, not very strong or very capable, but always full of sympathy and never-failing attention. Elsie, the third girl, was of the boisterous open-air type. She also had a night-watch and she kept it faithfully, though she did a man’s labour on the farm and only rested for the two hours in the middle of the day that she spent in Frances’ room.

“I’m used to broken nights,” she used to say stoutly. “Maggie and I always come in for them in lambing-time.”

Then there was Dolly—a girl of considerable character and decision—Nurse Dolly—Frances used to call her, for she was the one of them all whose touch was skilful and who had any real aptitude for nursing. Lucy and Nell were the youngest—girls of twenty and nineteen. Their watches came consecutively and they used to whisper a great deal in the sick-room when one of them relieved the other. It was mainly by their means that Frances learned how her condition went, and in a vague fashion it amused her to know. But somehow she never felt vitally interested.

When Nell—who always had hay-seed sown in her chestnut hair—told Lucy in hissing undertones that the doctor said she had no strength to make a stand and would probably go very suddenly in the end, Frances, still chained to her rock above the abyss, wondered what either of them would do if that amazing moment came while she was on guard. Lucy would certainly be frightened. She had a shy and gentle way with her. But Nell—Nell was extremely young and full of ideas. She would probably do something highly original before she quitted her post to find Dolly, as, Frances heard, had been arranged among them. Nell was a jolly girl, but she had a schoolboy’s rudeness for all who came her way, and a funny boyish fashion of regarding life that appealed to Frances immensely.

There was someone on the farm, she learned from the girls’ talk, for whom everyone had the profoundest contempt. Lucy and Nell always spoke of him as “the Beast.” But who the Beast was and why he was always thus described did not transpire.

There was also Arthur, Roger’s master, who, she gathered, knew how to assert his authority even over the sometimes mutinous Nell, and commanded her unbounded respect in consequence.

Then there was Oliver—“Oliver Twist” they called him. He was evidently a humorous person and his comic sayings often caused fits of suppressed giggles behind Frances’ screen. Frances used to train her ears to catch the joke, but it always eluded her, the point smothered in laughter, after which Nell would come round to her, looking contrite, and beg her to try and get a little sleep, in the same breath dismissing Lucy brusquely from the room. Yes, Frances liked Nell. She was so delightfully and naïvely human.

But most of all she loved little Ruth of the blind eyes, and Ruth’s granny—the patient, tired woman with the mother’s voice who had pitied her on that first evening. They were curiously alike, these two, in their patience, their gentleness, their serenity. They brought an atmosphere of peace into her room—a sense of rest that none of the sisters possessed. They always came to her together, and Ruth’s granny would speak tenderly in her tired voice, telling her she would be better soon.

She never stayed long, but Frances grew to look for her coming with a certain eagerness, so deep were the knowledge and the understanding in the grave kindly eyes. She had a feeling that this woman, with her white banded hair and sorrow-lined face was many years younger than she seemed. The blind child plainly worshipped her. “My dear Granny” was the fond term by which she always spoke of her, and it was evident to Frances that she filled the place of mother in the child’s heart. She was the petted darling of all the sisters, but this elderly woman who petted her least of all was the beloved one of her heart.

Little Ruth brought her a flower every day, and she would stay on after her granny had gone, curling up beside her on the bed, very still and quiet, sometimes whispering a little, always holding her hand. Frances loved to have her there. The child’s presence was as balm to her spirit. Even in her worst hours it comforted her to feel her near. She was the angel of her deliverance. Whenever that dreadful memory of evil assailed her, she wanted to clasp the little hand in hers, and always it brought her comfort. “My God hath sent His angel. . . .”

CHAPTER II
ROGER’S MASTER

The doctor—whose name was Square—was a bluff old countryman who was accustomed to ride miles over the moor every day on his old white mare, Jessie, in pursuit of his calling. A picturesque figure was Silas Square, immensely big and powerful, gruff and short of speech, but with a heart as soft as a woman’s. He came every morning and evening during the worst period of Frances’ illness, Nurse Dolly always accompanying him, and his strong kindly presence never failed to encourage, even at the time when Nell’s whispered confidences told Frances that he believed the end to be near. He did not talk much in the sick-room. His remedies were old-fashioned and drastic, but he always in some fashion conveyed a sense of confidence to his patients. She generally managed to smile at him when he came.

“You’ve got some pluck,” he said to her once, when he had watched the application of a poultice that caused her acute pain.

And she smiled at him again bravely, though she could not speak in answer, so tightly was her endurance stretched.

And then one day he looked at her with eyes that fairly beamed their congratulation. “You’ve done it!” he said. “You’re through the worst, and, madam, you’re the bravest woman it has ever been my lot to attend!”

She valued these words immensely. They were so spontaneous, and he was very obviously not a man given to flattery.

Thenceforward his visits dropped to once a day, but he always gave her a sympathy that amazed her with its intuition. His kindly concern for her welfare never failed, even when he had finally loosened her chain, and drawn her back from the abyss into safety.

But he would not hear of her being moved. “You’ve had a very stiff time,” he said. “And you’ve got to rest. You’re in excellent hands. The Dermots all love having you. So why worry?”

“Because they don’t know me. Because I am a stranger,” she made answer at last, when her strength had returned sufficiently for her to feel the difficulties of her position. “I can make no return to them for their kindness. I have got to make my living. I have no money.”

“Is kindness ever repaid by money?” he said, with a smile in his shrewd eyes. “You can’t go yet. I won’t sanction it. That heart of yours has got to tick better than it does at present—a long way better—before you think of earning your living again.”

“Then I must go to a hospital,” said Frances desperately, “I can’t go on in this way. I really can’t.”

“You’ll do as you’re told,” said old Dr. Square with a frown. “And you’ll take cream—plenty of it—every day.”

Then he went away, and Frances was left to fume in solitude.

“You’re fretting,” said Nurse Dolly severely when she took her temperature a little later. “That’s very wrong of you and quite unnecessary. Now you will have to take a sedative.”

She did not want the sedative. She was approaching that stage of convalescence when fretting is almost a necessity, and she fought against any palliative. But Dolly would take no refusal, and in the end, with tears of weakness, she had to submit.

“There now!” said Dolly practically, when she had won the day. “What a pity to upset yourself like that! Now don’t cry any more! Just go to sleep!”

She went to sleep, cried herself to sleep like a child that has been slapped, and slept deeply, exhausted, till late into the night. Then she awoke to find with great surprise the child Ruth curled up in the big bed beside her. The fair head was actually on her pillow, the flower-like face close to her own.

“Why, darling, little darling!” whispered Frances.

Ruth’s hands, soft and loving, clasped hers. “I’m not asleep,” she whispered back. “Do you mind me in bed with you?”

“Mind!” said Frances, gathering her close. “As if I could!”

Ruth gave a faint sigh. “I’ve been lying awake to ask you. I came because of a dream I had. Elsie wanted to send me away, but I wouldn’t go. So she put me into bed with you while you were asleep. I’m glad you don’t mind.”

“Go to sleep, my Rosebud!” said Frances very tenderly. “I wouldn’t part with you for all the world.”

She found out later that little Ruth was accustomed to spend her nights promiscuously among her young aunts. She chose her own place of rest, like a wandering scrap of thistledown, disturbing none. They always welcomed her fondly wherever she went, but none ever coerced or persuaded her. She lived her own life; they had no time to spend upon her, and she was curiously independent of them all. She went in and out quite fearlessly, seeing her visions behind those sealed lids, a child of strange spirituality to whom grief was unknown.

She brought her simple comfort to Frances that night, and they slept together in absolute peace. It was the best night that Frances had had throughout her illness.

In the morning she felt better. She and the little girl lay murmuring together in the misty sunshine of the dawn.

“I am going to the Stones to-day,” said Ruth. “I wish you could come.”

“The Stones!” Memory pierced Frances, and she shrank a little involuntarily. But: “Tell me about the Stones!” she said.

“I go and play there,” said Ruth. “Some people are afraid of them. I don’t know why. The fairies play their pipes there, and I lie and listen. And sometimes, when they think I am asleep, the biggest stones talk. But I don’t know what they say,” she added quaintly. “It isn’t our language at all. I daresay the fairies would understand, but they always run away and hide when the stones begin.”

“What are the Stones?” said Frances.

“Oh, just stones, the same as God made when He made the earth. They stand in a big circle. I don’t know why He put them like that, but they have been so ever since the world began. I expect He had a reason,” said the child. “Don’t you?”

“Yes, dear,” said Frances gently. “And you like to go there?”

“Yes,” said Ruth. She hesitated a moment as one to whom a subject is sacred; then: “My mother went to heaven from there,” she said. “So of course God must come there sometimes. I hope He’ll come there some day when I’m there.”

“Wouldn’t you be afraid?” said Frances.

“Afraid of God? Oh no! Why should anyone be afraid of God? He loves us,” said the child.

Frances kissed the upturned face that could not see the sun. “Bless you, little darling!” she said. “Is there anyone who wouldn’t love you, I wonder?”

Ruth left her soon after, and Nurse Dolly came in, brisk and efficient, to prepare her for the day.

“I am glad to see you better,” she said. “But you mustn’t sit up yet—not till you have had three days without a temperature. The doctor says so.”

“I will be very good,” Frances promised. “But do you think I might have my bed pushed near the window? I should so love to look out.”

Dolly considered the request judicially for a moment or two. She was recognized commander-in-chief in the sick-room. “We’ll see about it,” she said. “But it’s a heavy bed to move and has no castors. Still—we’ll see.”

She smiled upon Frances and proceeded with her toilet with her usual ready deftness.

Then she departed, and Frances heard her cheery voice calling for Oliver.

Through the window she heard a man’s voice reply. “Oliver’s gone to put the pigs in the cart for market. What do you want him for?”

“Oh, it’s all right; you’ll do,” said Dolly, still brisk and cheery. “Just come along and help me to move Miss Thorold’s bed! She has a fancy for lying in the sunshine.”

There was no answer to that save a grunt, and a moment later the sound of a pipe being tapped against the side of the step. Frances felt a quick flush rising in her face. She wished with all her heart that she could have restrained Dolly’s well-meaning arrangement as she heard the sound of a man’s tread upon the stairs.

Dolly re-entered, looking well pleased with herself. “Here’s Arthur come to move you,” she said. “He’s strong enough.”

Arthur entered behind her. His great frame with its broad shoulders filled the narrow doorway. He looked straight at her, and she thought his look was oddly lowering, even challenging.

“Come in!” said Dolly.

Frances said nothing. She was tongue-tied.

He came forward into the room, moving with the careless strength of conscious power. He paused at her bedside.

“Are you feeling better?”

She recovered herself with an effort. “I am much better, thank you,” she said, and held out her hand.

He paused an instant as if she had taken him by surprise. Then abruptly he gripped and held the outstretched hand. His face changed magically. He smiled at her, and his smile was good to see. It took years from his appearance, belying the iron-grey of hair that had once been as black as his brows.

“I’m glad of that,” he said. “I hope they are doing all they can for you.”

“They are doing far too much,” Frances said. “I feel so ashamed lying here.”

“Why ashamed?” he said.

She coloured again, painfully, under his eyes. “I have never been in anyone’s debt before,” she said. “And this—this is more than I can ever hope to repay.”

His smile passed, and again his face was hard with the hardness of the fighter. “There is no debt that I can see,” he said. “We are all at the mercy of circumstance. If it comes to that, we owed it to ourselves to do what we could for you.”

It was brusquely spoken, but his look, grim though it was, seemed to her to hold a hint of friendliness. The dog Roger, who had entered behind him, came nosing up to the bedside and she slipped her hand free to fondle him. There was something in this man’s personality that embarrassed her, wherefore she could not have said.

Roger acknowledged her attention with humble effusion, glancing apologetically towards his master the while.

“You are very kind to put it like that,” she said at last, as he stood immovably beside her. “But I can’t bear to be a burden upon anyone—especially—especially——”

“Especially what?” he said.

She answered with difficulty. “Especially people who have to work as hard as you do.”

“People in our walk of life, do you mean?” he said, and she heard the echo of a sneer behind the words.

“Arthur, you are not to make her talk,” said Dolly severely. “She had a temperature yesterday all through over-excitement and fretting, and it throws her back at once. Will you please move the bed and go?”

She spoke with her habitual decision, and Frances was aware of a strong resemblance between the brother and sister as Arthur turned to comply. She herself was near to tears, such was her weakness and distress of mind, and while her bed was being moved across to the window she could not look at either of them. But when the move was at length satisfactorily effected and she could gaze forth over the dewy sunlit fields, she commanded herself sufficiently to utter a low word of thanks.

He came back to her then, and stood beside her. “You are most welcome at Tetherstones,” he said. “Please don’t talk of debts and burdens! They don’t come into the reckoning here.”

His tone was restrained, but it held an unmistakable note of apology. She lifted her eyes in amazement, but he had already turned away. He went out of the room with the free, deliberate swing with which he had entered, and she heard him descending the stairs with Roger pattering behind.

“For goodness’ sake, never take any notice of Arthur!” said sensible Dolly, as she whisked about the room setting it in order. “He always was a bear, and the circumstances he talks about haven’t been such as to have a very taming effect on him.”

Then she knew that by some means Dolly had obtained that semi-apology in order to keep her patient’s temperature normal.

CHAPTER III
THE BEAST

From the day that her bed was moved to the window, Frances began to regain her strength.

It came back to her slowly, with intervals of pain and weariness, when she felt as if she were making no progress at all, but it returned, and her indefatigable nurses gradually relinquished their vigil.

“You can go downstairs and sit in the sun if you want to,” said Dr. Square one morning.

And she thanked him and promised to make the effort. There was a corner of the old-fashioned garden that she could see from her window in which she had often longed to sit, but now that the time had come, all desire for change had left her. She lacked the energy for enthusiasm.

“That’s because you are weak still,” said Dolly. “Never mind! I’ll arrange everything. We’ll get the couch out of the parlour. I can make it very comfortable with some pillows and a rug. It’s nice and cool under the cedar. Don’t you fret now! Just leave it all to me!”

She went off briskly to make her arrangements, and Frances heard her from the garden calling Maggie to come and help her with the couch.

Maggie came, the hair as usual flying all around her sunny face. She was accompanied by the young man they called Oliver, who carried a stable-fork and had evidently just come from the farmyard. Maggie was looking unusually serious, Frances discovered, as the three of them paused at a corner of the old house for discussion.

Presently Maggie’s clear tones reached her. “Don’t you be a silly girl, Dolly! You’ve no right to risk it. You keep her where she is!”

Dolly for once seemed undecided, and Oliver, with a faintly rueful smile on his comical countenance, ranged himself on Maggie’s side.

“Don’t let’s have a shindy for goodness’ sake!” he said. “We’ve kept him quiet till now, but I won’t answer for him much longer. The beast has got to break out some time. I told Arthur so this morning.”

“Oh, but this is nonsense!” declared Dolly. “You can keep him in the farmyard surely. I know I could.”

“Well, you’d better go and do it then, that’s all,” said Maggie. “For he’s on the ramp this morning, and no mistake. I can’t pacify him.”

There followed some words in a lower tone which did not reach Frances at her window, and then the group dispersed, Maggie and Oliver departing in the direction of the farmyard, and Dolly entering the house.

Frances was left alone for some time, and presently coming to the not unwelcome conclusion that she was to remain in her room that day, she began to fall asleep. The day was sultry and very still. She heard vaguely the summer sounds that came through her window. The atmosphere was peaceful beyond words. The occasional lowing of a cow in the meadow beyond the garden where the chattering stream ran, the cooing of the pigeons on the roof of the old barn, and the cry of the wheeling swallows that nestled in the eaves, the singing of a thousand larks above the heather-covered moors, all came to her like a softly-coloured dream. She felt wonderfully soothed and at rest, too tired to speculate as to the meaning of that half-heard discussion below her window, content to drowse the time away as long as Nurse Dolly would permit.

The breeze, laden with the scent of heather, came in upon her like a benediction, playing lightly with her hair, closing her weary lids. She sank more and more deeply into repose.

Then, just when the spell seemed complete, there came a sudden and violent interruption, so startling that she sprang up in a wild alarm, not knowing whence it came.

It began like the bellow of a bull—a terrific sound that sent all the blood to her heart; then she realized that it came from somewhere in the house, not the farmyard, and sat there palpitating, asking herself what it could be.

It went on for many seconds. Sometimes it seemed to her strained senses like the shouting of an angry man, then its utter lack of articulation and intelligibility convinced her that it must be some animal gone mad and broken loose. In the midst of the din she thought she heard a woman’s voice crying frantically for help, and then there came a frightful crash, and all sound ceased.

Frances sank back upon her pillows, completely unnerved. Something terrible had happened. Of that she was certain. But what? But what? Why was the house so deadly quiet after the uproar—that tumult that had made her think of devils fighting together? This mysterious Beast of whom the two girls whispered so freely—was it he who had broken loose, trampling wide destruction through that wonderland of peace? And had he escaped after that final crash, or was he dead? She longed to know, yet dreaded to find out.

Her limbs felt paralysed, and her heart was beating with slow, uneven strokes. A catastrophe of some kind had taken place. Of that she felt certain. Had one of the six sisters been hurt? That wild cry for help—she was sure now that she had heard it—which girl was it who had been in such sore distress? And had the help come in time?

Ah! A sound a last! A step upon the stair! The door opened with quiet decision and Dolly entered. She looked exactly as usual, her face perfectly calm and unclouded.

“I am sorry,” she said, “but I am afraid it is a little too cold for you in the garden to-day. The wind has changed.”

Frances gave a gasp, between relief and incredulity. For the moment words were beyond her.

“Is there anything the matter?” said Dolly.

With an effort Frances made reply. “I thought—something had happened—such a strange noise—it woke me.”

Dolly looked at her with a kindly smile. “Ah, you’ve been dreaming,” she said practically. “People often get nightmares after a bad illness. It’s just weakness, you know.”

She came and felt Frances’ pulse. “Yes, I think you are well enough. I have got a letter for you here. Mrs. Trehearn sent it up this morning.”

She gave an envelope into Frances’ hand, but Frances only stared at her blankly.

“Well?” said Dolly after a moment. “Don’t you want to read it?”

“Thank you,” Frances said, recovering herself.

Dolly smiled again upon her and went to the door. “One of the girls will be in with your cocoa directly. I must go down and help Mother with the bread.”

She went, still unruffled, serenely sure of herself. But Frances, who at first had been almost bewildered into imagining that she had actually dreamed the disturbance below, lay back again with a feeling akin to indignation. Did Dolly really think that she was to be deceived so easily?

She suddenly remembered the letter in her hand, and looked down at it. A man’s writing sprawled across the envelope, and again her heart gave a jerk. What was this?

No word from Montague Rotherby had reached her since little Ruth had led her to Tetherstones on that night of darkness. She had been too ill to think of him till lately, and now in her convalescence she never voluntarily suffered her thoughts to wander in his direction. She had come to regard the whole episode of her acquaintance with him in the light of a curious illusion, such an illusion as she would always remember with a sense of shame. With all her heart she hoped that she would never see him again, for the bare memory of him had become abhorrent to her. Here in the wholesome security of Tetherstones she felt that she had come to her senses, and she would never again be led away by the glitter of that which was not gold.

And so, as she looked at the letter in her hand, there came upon her such a feeling of revolt as had never before possessed her. It was as though she grasped a serpent, and she yearned to destroy it, but dared not.

There came again to her as a sombre echo in her soul the memory of the Bishop’s words: “. . . Until you have endured your hell, and—if God is merciful—begun to work out your own salvation.”

But had she yet endured her hell? Of the hours spent with Rotherby on the moor before the coming of the child her memory was vague. A long wandering, coupled with a growing fear, and at the last an overwhelming sense of evil that she was powerless to combat were the only impressions that remained to her. But with a great vividness did she remember how she had surrendered herself to him the evening before, and burned with shame at the memory. No, she never wanted to see him again, and she longed to destroy his letter unread. The very touch of it was horrible to her.

But something stayed her hand. Something called within her—a mocking, elusive something that taunted her courage. What was there in a letter to frighten her? If she were sure of herself—if she were sure of herself—She tore open the envelope with a gesture of exasperation. Of course she was sure of herself!

“Circe, my beloved!” So the note began, and before her eyes there swam a mist. No man in the whole world had ever called her beloved before! She gripped herself firmly, nerving herself for the ordeal. This was not Love—this was not Love! This was an evil that must be firmly met and cast out. But ah, if it had been Love!

Resolutely she read the letter through. It was written from the inn at Fordestown. “I lost you on that night of fog, but I have found you again, and I have been waiting ever since. They tell me you are better, but I can’t meet you among strangers. When will you come to me? Come soon, Circe beloved! Come soon!

“I am yours, M. R.”

She looked up from the letter. So he was waiting for her still! Somehow she had thought that he would not have deemed it worth his while. A curious dazed feeling possessed her. He was waiting for her still! The ordeal was not over yet. How was she going to face it?

There came a knock at the door—Nell’s boyish knock. She entered, carrying a tray with cocoa and cream upon it.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “I hope you haven’t been wanting it very badly.”

Frances crumpled the letter in her hand. She looked at the girl and saw that Nell’s usually rosy face was pale.

“Is anything the matter, Nell?” she said.

Nell’s chin quivered at the question. “Oh, there’s been a frightful row,” she said. “But I mustn’t tell you anything about it. Arthur would be furious if he knew.”

“You needn’t be afraid of that,” said Frances. “He won’t know.”

“Thank you,” the girl said, and dried her eyes. “But I can’t tell you all the same. It wouldn’t be fair. You don’t know the beast’s ways, and it’s a good thing you don’t. Please don’t ask me anything—or I shall say too much! I know I shall.”

“My dear, I don’t want you to tell me anything against your will,” Frances said kindly.

“No, it isn’t that,” Nell said. “But I don’t want you to think you ought to go. We’ve been so glad to have you. We’ve loved looking after you. But there’s never any peace—and never will be so long as Arthur—” She broke off abruptly. “Oh, I’d better go. I’m making a muddle of things, and there’ll be a worse row if he finds out.”

She left the room precipitately, and Frances was again alone. She closed her eyes to think. Something in Nell’s confused words had given her a shock.

So they wanted her gone! That was what it amounted to. She had outstayed her welcome, and she must go. The thought of all the kindness they had showered upon her sent a pang to her heart. How good they had been to the unwelcome stranger within their gates! And all the while there had been no peace at Tetherstones because of the black-browed master who wanted her gone.

No peace at Tetherstones, and how nobly they had striven to keep it from her! Ah well, she knew now—she knew now!

Her hand clenched unconsciously, and she became aware of the letter she held. A great wave of feeling went through her. Her eyes were suddenly full of tears. Ah, if it had been Love that called her! If it had been Love!

CHAPTER IV
REBELS

Two days later, Frances went out into the garden. She leaned upon Dolly’s arm, for she was very weak, and Lucy came behind, carrying rugs and cushions. They settled her on a couch under the great cedar-tree that spread its branches over the lawn, and there little Ruth came and nestled beside her while the two elder girls went away.

“When you are well enough,” said Ruth, her sweet face upturned to the chequered sunlight, “I would like you to come to the Stones with me.”

“When I am well enough, sweetheart,” said Frances, “as soon as I can walk, that is, I am going away.”

“Right away?” said the child.

“Yes, darling. Right away. I have stayed too long, much too long, as it is.”

“I would like you always here,” said Ruth.

Frances pressed her to her side in silence.

It was a perfect summer morning. From across the field that bordered the old garden there came the babble of the stream. There was a line of sunflowers along the red-brick wall, and below them the blue of delphiniums that brought to mind the Bishop’s garden. The warm scent of sweet-peas filled the air. Some distance away, Nell’s sunbonnet was visible, dipping among the green. She and Lucy were gathering peas, and their careless chatter came to Frances where she lay. The peace of the place rested upon it like a benediction.

“You will come with me to the Stones before you go, won’t you?” said Ruth.

It was hard to refuse her. “Perhaps, darling,” she said gently.

There came the tread of a horse’s hoofs on the cobbles of the yard. “That is Uncle Arthur,” said Ruth, and freed herself from Frances’ encircling arm.

“Are you going?” Frances asked.

“I shall come back,” she said.

With perfect confidence she left the shade of the cedar-tree and moved through the hot sunshine that bathed the lawn. Frances watched her wonderingly. She did not run, but she went quickly over the grass, and never faltered when her feet reached the gravel-path. Unerringly the little blue-frocked figure found the gate that led into the yard, and disappeared beyond the wall. Frances breathed a sigh. The place seemed empty without her. Some minutes passed, and the child did not return. She began to grow drowsy, and was actually on the verge of slumber when a rustling sound close at hand suddenly recalled her. She came to herself with a sharp start.

The rustling ceased immediately, but she had an acute sense of being watched that sent a strange uneasiness through her. She made an effort to raise herself.

Her heart was throbbing fast and hard, and she was conscious of intense weakness, but she managed to drag herself into a sitting position and to turn her head in the direction whence the sound had come.

At first she perceived nothing, for a screen of nut-trees that bounded an orchard beyond the garden effectually concealed everything else from sight. Then, as though drawn by some magnetism, her eyes became riveted. She saw two other eyes peering at her through the leaves, and vaguely discerned a figure crouched and motionless, a few yards from her.

The blood rushed to her heart in a great wave of apprehension. There was something ominous in its utter stillness. She felt like a defenceless traveller who has made his couch all unwittingly on the threshold of a wild beast’s lair.

She lay very still, not moving, not daring to breathe.

Suddenly from across the lawn she heard the deep tones of a man’s voice. She turned her eyes swiftly in the direction whence it came and, with a throb of mingled relief and embarrassment, saw Arthur Dermot crossing the grass towards her, little Ruth holding his hand. She glanced back swiftly again into the green of the nut-trees, but the space whence those eyes had glared so fixedly at her was empty. Without a sound the watcher had gone.

An acute wave of reaction went through her—an overwhelming sense of helplessness. She sank back upon her cushions, weakly gasping. The sunlight swam before her eyes.

“Miss Thorold!” said a voice.

She looked up with an effort, seeing him through a mist. “I am quite all right. Just—just a passing faintness! It is nothing—really nothing!”

She heard herself uttering the words, but she could not lift her voice above a whisper. At the touch of a quiet hand laid upon her own, she knew she started violently.

“It has been too much for you, coming out here,” he said.

“I am quite all right,” she assured him again tremulously. “I am only sorry—to have given—so much trouble.”

“That’s not the way to look at it,” he said.

She felt his fingers close up on her wrist and wondered a little, for there was something very quieting in his touch.

“You mustn’t attempt too much at a time,” he said. “Square told me so only two days ago. You are not wanting to leave us yet, are you?”

The direct question, coming from him, took her by surprise. Her vision was steadying, but an odd flutter of agitation still possessed her. She did not know how to answer him for the moment; then the memory that he wanted her gone came upon her, and she braced herself to reply.

“I must go—yes. I have been here much too long as it is.”

His fingers left her wrist, but he still stood above her motionless, looking straight down at her, yet not as if he watched her, but rather as if he debated something with himself.

“May I ask a question?” he said suddenly.

She felt herself colour. There was something unexpected about this man. She wondered why he embarrassed her so. She tried to smile in answer to his words though his expression was grave to sombreness. “If it isn’t too hard a one,” she said.

“It’s only this,” he said, in his quiet, rather ponderous fashion. “Have you anywhere to go to—if you leave us?”

“Oh, that!” said Frances, and knew she had betrayed herself before she could formulate her reply. “Why, yes,—of course I have.”

“Why ‘of course’?” he said.

She hesitated. “Because—well, every woman has somewhere to go to. I have—a brother.”

“A brother?” he said.

She found herself explaining further as if under compulsion. “Yes, in the North,—a business man. He would take me in.”

“Have you any intention of asking him to?” Somehow the question stung her. It was so direct, so unerring, like the flick of a whip-lash. She dropped her eyes before his look. “I can do so,” she said with pride.

“Do you intend to?” he insisted.

She did not answer. Before that straight regard she could not lie.

He waited a moment or two, then to her surprise he sat down upon the grass by her side. “Ruth,” he said to the blind child standing silently beside him. “Go to the house and find my tobacco-pouch! Maggie is in the dairy. She will know where it is.”

Ruth went with instant obedience, and Arthur Dermot took off his cap and laid it on the grass.

“Now, Miss Thorold,” he said, “I am going to ask you another question.”

He spoke with the authority of a man not accustomed to be gainsaid, and again that odd quiver as of apprehension went through her. She lay in silence, waiting.

When he spoke again, she knew he was looking at her, but she did not meet his look.

“I want to know,” he said, “what it was that scared you so up at the Stones the night you came to us.”

“Ah!” She made a quick movement of protest. “I can’t tell you that,” she said.

“You don’t want to tell me,” he said.

“I can’t tell you,” she said again.

He was silent for a space, but she was conscious of his eyes still upon her, and she had an urgent desire to escape from their scrutiny. They were so intent, so unsparing, so full of resolution.

“Someone was up there with you,” he said suddenly.

She clenched her hands to check the swift leap of her heart. “I don’t think you have any right—to press me like this,” she said, her voice very low.

“No right whatever,” he agreed, and in his quiet rejoinder she caught an unexpected note of relief. “I knew you had had a fright, and the Stones have a bad name hereabouts. I wondered what bogey had frightened you. But apparently it wasn’t a bogey this time.”

He smiled a little with the words and she felt the tension relax. She lifted her eyes and met a gleam of friendliness in his.

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t a bogey.”

“Perhaps you don’t believe in them,” said Arthur Dermot.

She hesitated, remembering the eyes that had glared at her through the nut-trees, and then wondering within herself if they had been a dream. He went on with scarcely a pause.

“Whether you do or not, I shouldn’t go to the Stones again in the dark if I were you. It’s not a healthy spot.”

“But the child goes!” she said in surprise.

“The child!” He lifted his brows. “The child is different,” he said briefly. “The child goes everywhere.”

His tone did not invite comment. She wondered and held her peace.

After a moment he went on, his jaw set in the fighting fashion she had come to associate with him. “All this is beside the point, though you’ve satisfied me in one particular. Now, Miss Thorold, to return to the charge! Why must you go from here before you are fit?”

“I think you know why,” she said.

“But if you have no one to go to—” he said.

“I am going to work,” said Frances, with decision.

“What is your work?” he asked.

She answered him without reserve, for his manner had undergone a change. “I am a typist. I have been secretary to the Bishop of Burminster.”

“Burminster!” he repeated the name sharply. “What is his name?”

“Dr. Rotherby.”

“Ah!” She saw his face twist suddenly, as if at a spasm of pain. “That man!” He ground the words between his teeth.

“Yes, that man! Do you know him?”

She asked the question with a certain hesitation, but he answered it immediately. “I knew him once—before he came to Burminster. What is he like now? Did he treat you decently?”

“He never treats anyone decently,” said Frances.

“You quarrelled with him?” He looked at her sharply.

“Yes. I quarrelled with him,” she answered with simplicity. “I think he is the hardest man I have ever met.”

Arthur Dermot was silent. He picked up his cap and began to turn it in his hands, moodily meditative.

“Well,” Frances said, after a moment, “that is a closed chapter now. I am looking out for another post.”

“They are not very easy to find, are they?” he said.

The indomitable courage that Montague Rotherby had admired in her sounded in her reply. “Of course they are not easy. That’s just the best of life. We’ve got to work for everything worth having.”

“Some of us have to work for what isn’t,” he said.

“Yes. I’ve done that too,” she answered.

He lifted his eyes abruptly to hers, dark eyes that seemed to her to hold a curious protest. “And you’ve found it worth while?” he said.

She countered the question. “Have you?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t say I’d done it.”

“But you know what it feels like,” she said.

He smiled at that. “You are very shrewd. Well, I have done it. But I don’t see any results—any decent results. I never shall see any.”

“Does one ever really get results before the work is done?” said Frances.

“I don’t know.” He dropped his eyes again moodily, and she found her own resting upon the silvery gleam of his bent head. “Life can be pretty damnable,” he said, “most particularly to those who have a sense of duty.”

“It is more damnable if we rebel,” said Frances quietly.

“You speak as one who knows,” he said.

“Yes. I do know.” She uttered the words with conviction. “I have been a rebel. But that is over. I am going back now to work in the furrows—if a place can be found for me.”

He frowned at her words. “Those infernal furrows! We plough our very souls into the soil! And to what end? Of what use?”

“So you are a rebel too!” said Frances, with the suspicion of a smile.

He threw her his sudden, challenging look, and she thought he was angry. But in a moment, sombrely, with eyes downcast, he made answer. “Yes, I am a rebel too.”

There fell a silence between them that was curiously sympathetic. Frances reflected later that it was that silence that banished all her former embarrassment. She knew when he spoke again that it would not be as a stranger. Somehow they had ceased to be strangers.

He looked up at her again at length. “Miss Thorold, I want to ask you something, and I don’t know how to put it. I’ve lived among clods too long to express myself with much delicacy. Will you make allowances for that?”

She met his look with frankness. “You do not need to ask me that,” she said.

“Thank you.” His eyes held hers with a certain mastery notwithstanding the humility of his address. “I have no intention of being offensive, I assure you. But I know—I can’t help knowing—that you have come through a pretty bad passage lately. I don’t want to ask anything about it. I only want to lend a hand to help you back to firm ground. Will you let me do this?”

“I have already accepted too much from you,” she said.

His look hardened. “I know. So you think. But you only see one point of view. I want you to realize that there is another. And if you leave Tetherstones now, well, you won’t have done all you might towards lessening what I believe you regard as an obligation.”

“What do you mean?” she said. “I thought you wanted me to go.”

“You thought wrong,” he returned with finality. “There is room for you here, and no reason whatever why you should go back to old Mrs. Trehearn, who is utterly unfit to look after you. Square says it would be madness. I beg you will not contemplate such a thing for a moment.”

He spoke with a force that he did not attempt to conceal, and she heard him with a strange mixture of surprise and doubt. She could not understand his insistence, but at the back of her mind she was oddly conscious of the fact that she lacked the strength to combat it.

Instinctively she sought to temporize. “It would be quite impossible for me to stay on here indefinitely. You have all been much too kind to me already, and I couldn’t—I really couldn’t.”

“Wait!” he said. “I haven’t suggested your doing that. I know you wouldn’t. What I do suggest is that you should stay here to convalesce while you are looking about for another post. Can’t you do that as easily here as with your brother in the North for instance?”

She smiled a little at his words, but she shook her head. “I can’t go on living on your kindness, and I have so very little money left. You must understand how impossible it would be.”

“I don’t understand,” he said doggedly. “You are a woman, and a woman has got to be protected when she is at the end of her resources. If you really want to make any return, you can do the farm accounts for Milly. She never had any aptitude for figures. But for heaven’s sake don’t talk of going until you are well! I won’t hear of it.”

There was little logic in the argument and more than a little dogmatism; but for some reason Frances found herself unable to combat the point further. He was evidently determined that she should stay, and she was too tired for further resistance.

“We will talk of this again,” she said gently. “Meanwhile, I am very, very grateful to you, and—should like to help with the farm accounts if I may—while I am here.”

“Thank you,” he said.

He got to his feet with the words. She thought he was going to take her hand, then suddenly she saw him stiffen, and realized that they were no longer alone.

She raised herself to see the bent figure of an old man coming towards them over the grass.

CHAPTER V
MR. DERMOT

“My father!” said Arthur Dermot.

The old man had reached them. He stood, leaning on a knotted stick, looking at her. Again she marvelled, for it was the face of a scholar—a dreamer—that she beheld. It had the grey hue of one who seldom moves in the sunshine. The eyes were drawn as if they did not see very clearly or were continually looking for something beyond their range of vision. His hair was snowy white. She thought he must be very old.

“Is this our visitor from the moors?” he asked, in a feeble tenor voice that somehow stirred her compassion.

“Yes,—Miss Thorold.” Arthur’s reply was curt, almost as if he resented the old man’s presence. His whole attitude was uncompromising.

“I am very pleased to meet you,” said Mr. Dermot courteously addressing Frances. “I was so grieved to hear of the unfortunate result of your adventure. I trust you are now nearly restored to your normal health?”

“I am much better,” Frances said. “I have been telling your son how very, very grateful I am for all the kindness that has been shown me here.”

“Not at all—not at all,” said Mr. Dermot. “It has been a great pleasure to us all to be of any service to you. You are a stranger in this part of this world, I hear?”

“Yes. I came here for a rest. It was foolish of me to get lost on the moor,” said Frances, smiling ruefully. “I shall never do that again.”

“Ah! It must have been a very unpleasant experience. It is strange that you should have been found at the Stones.” The tired old face reflected her smile. “There is a tradition hereabouts that the devil walks there at night. You did not meet him by any chance?”

“No,” Frances said. “I did not meet him. Curiously enough, I have never even seen the Stones. I did not know they were there. The night was so dark and misty.”

“It is a very interesting spot,” said Mr. Dermot. “A Druidical circle—according to some—though others believe it to be the result of a volcanic upheaval many thousands of years ago. I myself held the former theory. There are certain marks which in my opinion can only have been made by iron staples. This supports the current belief that Druidical victims were chained there previous to sacrifices. Hence the name of Tetherstones.”

He uttered the word deliberately, with a smile towards his son, who stood on one side moodily fidgeting with the riding-whip he held.

“What a ghastly idea!” said Frances.

“It is somewhat gruesome certainly, but it holds considerable interest for the student. If you are at all attracted by this type of research I shall be very pleased to conduct you to the Stones one day and to point out all the features which in my opinion tend to support this theory. My son Arthur,” again he smiled, “has no use for relics of any description. He is too busy tilling the ground to give his attention to the study of mere stones.”

“Too busy grinding his bread from them!” put in Arthur with a cynical twist of the lips. “Miss Thorold will not be equal to a climb to the Stones for some time yet. And I doubt if they would interest her very greatly when she got there.”

“Indeed they would interest me,” Frances said. “I have always been attracted by the study of old things. I hope Mr. Dermot will one day be kind enough to show me what he has just been describing.”

“With pleasure—with pleasure,” said the old man, evidently gratified by her sympathy. “Sunset is a very favourite time for seeing them. The evening shadows are very beautiful up there.”

“Little Ruth has been telling me about them,” Frances said.

“Ah! The child! The little blind child who lives with us! Yes, yes, of course, the child!” The old man’s voice was suddenly vague. He frowned a little as one who seeks to capture an elusive memory. “It is strange how little her infirmity hampers her,” he said, after a moment. “I sometimes think she has an inner vision that serves her more effectually than physical sight. The brain of a blind person must be a very interesting study.”

“She seems wonderfully happy,” Frances said.

“Yes, yes, she is always happy—like—like—another child I used to know.” Old Mr. Dermot’s eyes took a sudden pathetic look. “I lost that child,” he said. “There are a great many others—a great many others; but she was the darling of them all.” He turned with sudden querulousness upon the younger man standing silently by. “Why are you waiting here? Why don’t you go back to the grinding of your stones?”

“I am waiting for Ruth,” his son made quiet rejoinder, without the movement of a muscle. “I have sent her to fetch something.”

Mr. Dermot’s fine mouth curved satirically. “My son likes to be waited upon,” he observed to Frances. “When you are well enough, he will make use of you too. We all have to work for him. He is a hard taskmaster.”

Frances smiled. “I shall be only too glad to be of use to any of you,” she said. “I am very much in your debt at present.”

“Oh, nonsense, nonsense!” he returned paternally. “We do not talk of debts at Tetherstones. Nor do we let our visitors work. Unless,” he smiled back at her with a kindliness that won its way to her heart, “you would like to help me perhaps. I am writing a book on the Stones.”

“Miss Thorold is not well enough to do anything at present,” said Arthur with brief decision. “We must not worry her. Remember, she is an invalid, and she must be treated as such.”

“Oh, but I am much stronger,” Frances said quickly, for it hurt her to see the sudden animation fade from the grey old face. “I should love to help you if I could. Do you think I can?”

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Dermot, and she was surprised by an odd hopeless ring in his voice. “A great many have tried to help me, but it is a very difficult matter, and no one has succeeded yet.”

“You must let me try,” Frances said gently, with the feeling that she was comforting a child. “I should like to try.”

She uttered the last words with a glance towards Arthur and was surprised by the sternness of his expression. He was not looking at her, but at the old man who stood leaning on his stick with his faded blue eyes gazing sadly before him.

“You may try if you like,” said Mr. Dermot. “But my moments of inspiration are getting rare. Yet I should like to have finished that book when I come to die. It is good to leave something behind to mark where one fell.”

The dreaminess of tone and words smote upon her senses like a knell. Again she tried to find some comforting words, but they were checked by the sight of Ruth coming across the grass in her light, confident fashion. They all watched her, as it were by common consent. She was singing to herself, her little tuneless song.

“Strange!” said the old man suddenly. “They say that blind birds always have the sweetest notes.”

He moved to meet the child, and she put out her hand to him with a smile.

“Oh, Grandpa, are you back again? I am so glad you are back.”

“Are you glad, little one?” He stooped to kiss the upturned face. “Have you missed the old man all this time?”

“I like it best when you are here,” she answered. “We all do. Shall we go for a walk now, Grandpa? My dear Granny said I might go to the Stones. I want to gather some giant harebells for Miss Thorold.”

“May I have my pouch?” said Arthur.

She had it in her hand. She turned and gave it to him. “And there is a letter for Miss Thorold Aunt Maggie told me to bring out. Old Mrs. Trehearn has just brought it.”

“A letter!” said Frances, and felt her heart jerk upon the word.

Silently Arthur handed it to her. One glance at the address was enough. She could not control the swift tremor that went through her as she murmured her thanks.

“And Dr. Square is here,” said Ruth. “He is drinking elder-flower wine in the kitchen. He told me to say he is just coming out to see Miss Thorold.”

“Then we will go,” said Mr. Dermot, turning towards the couch with a courteous gesture. “Miss Thorold, I hope I have not tired you. You are very pale. Give Dr. Square my compliments, Arthur! Tell him I am back again and feeling much better. Good-bye, Miss Thorold! When next I have the pleasure of seeing you, I shall be bringing you my book to read.”

He went, Ruth treading lightly by his side, noiseless and dainty as a scrap of thistledown.

Arthur had not stirred from his post by the foot of the couch. He stood there, massively, filling his pipe. And Frances lay, breathing quickly, her letter unopened in her hand.

Suddenly the man’s eyes looked across at her, straight and challenging. “Aren’t you going to read it?” he said.

She quivered at the abrupt question. She knew that she could not open that letter in his presence.

He realized the fact instantly, and she saw an odd gleam of triumph in his eyes. He turned and picked up his cap.

“All right. I’m going. But don’t forget—whatever he has to say—you’ve promised to stay here for the present!”

He was gone with the words, striding away towards the house, leaving her oddly disconcerted and unsure of herself.

Yes, she had promised to stay. At the bidding of this man whom she scarcely knew, she had yielded the point and she knew that he would keep her to it. His attitude was wholly incomprehensible to her, convinced as she was that he had wished her gone. But in his taciturn, ungracious fashion he had somehow made it impossible for her to go. She wondered, as she watched him depart, if he were pleased—or otherwise—with his morning’s work. Even with his last words vibrating in her mind, she greatly doubted if he had acted in accordance with his own inclination. She knew he had meant to be kind, but was it under pressure perhaps from someone else—Dolly, his mother, or the old tired man his father, who had evidently but just returned to the farm after a prolonged absence? It was impossible to tell. She was bound to suspend judgment. And meantime—meantime that second letter from Montague Rotherby was yet unopened in her trembling hand.

CHAPTER VI
MAGGIE

It was still unopened when Dr. Square came out of the house with Dolly, and at his approach she pushed it behind a cushion.

Whether he noted any agitation on her part or not she could not say, but he was very emphatic in his orders to her to rest, and impressed upon Dolly the necessity for absolute quiet. Then he departed, and, before she could open her letter, Milly came out with her work and a chair and sat down beside her with the evident intention of remaining. Milly was the silent one of the family, a shy, diffident girl who shared Ruth’s adoration for her mother, but had little in common with the rest. She was stitching at a flannel shirt for Arthur, and she worked steadily without lifting her eyes.

Frances did not attempt any conversation. She was very tired, and the thought of that letter which could only be read in solitude burdened her. She had not answered the first, and he had written again so soon! She had a bewildered feeling as of being driven against her will, but whither she could not have said. Only she knew that if she would save herself this letter must be answered. He was growing impatient, and perhaps it was not surprising. She had given him a certain right over her. He could at least with justice claim an explanation of her changed attitude. But the bare thought of such an explanation revolted her. She had a passionate desire to thrust him out of her life, never to see him, never to communicate with him again. Only she knew—too well—that he would not submit to such treatment. Sooner or later he would demand a reckoning. And—torturing thought!—after all, had he not a right?

Oliver’s cheery voice across the lawn diverted her attention. He was leaning on the sill of the dairy window, talking jauntily to someone within. She liked Oliver—Oliver Twist as they called him, on account, she had discovered, of a slight limp, the result of a kick on the knee in his boyhood. He had a gay personality that appealed to her, and the comic flash of his daring blue eyes was a thing to remember. He was never depressed, whatever the weather.

He was plainly enjoying himself on this occasion, and presently a ringing laugh in unison with his told her who was the companion of his idle moments. There was only one person at Tetherstones who ever laughed like that.

Milly glanced up nervously from her work at the sound, but made no comment. Only, as the distant figure suddenly leapt the sill and disappeared into the dairy, she coloured very deeply as if ashamed. Frances, who had viewed the whole incident with amused interest, felt a little out of patience with her. She had noticed before that Maggie and Oliver were evidently kindred spirits.

She closed her eyes with the reflection that Milly must be something of a prude, when a sudden commotion rekindled her interest and she opened them again in time to see Oliver come hurtling through the window with amazing force to land on his back in a bed of mignonette. With amazement that seemed to choke her she saw Arthur, his head lowered like an infuriated bull, draw back from the window into the dairy.

“Good heavens!” she said aloud. “Did he do that?”

“Yes,” said Milly under her breath. She added very nervously, “It—it—it was Oliver’s fault.”

“Good heavens!” said Frances again.

The glimpse of Arthur’s face, dead-white, a mask of anger, had set her pulses wildly throbbing. She watched tensely to see what Oliver would do.

What he did do amazed her almost more than his first involuntary gymnastic. He got up from the mignonette laughing as if he had just come out of a football scrum, straightened his attire without the smallest hint of discomfiture, and coolly vaulted back through the window into the dairy.

“Ah!” whispered Milly, and held her breath.

She clearly expected some further act of violence, and trembled for the young man’s safety. Frances also watched with keen anxiety. But at the end of many seconds she began to realize that the episode was over. No one approached the window again.

Milly drew a deep breath and resumed her work in silence.

It was clear that she did not wish to discuss what had just taken place, and Frances was far too considerate to trouble her with questions or comments. But the incident had very successfully diverted her own thoughts. She actually forgot that disturbing letter which lay hidden under her cushion.

Her thoughts dwelt persistently upon Arthur Dermot. The man puzzled her. There was something tragic about him, something fierce, untamed and solitary, with which she found herself strangely in sympathy. She realized that the life he led was a singlehanded fight against odds. He was like a swimmer battling to make headway against an overwhelming current, succeeding only in keeping afloat; and she who for so long had also fought alone was aware of a quick sense of comradeship urging her to a readier comprehension than it seemed anyone else at Tetherstones possessed. She was beginning to understand what had made her first visualize him as a gladiator standing alone in the arena of life.

The rest of the morning passed uneventfully, save that Oliver presently appeared, unabashed and cheery of mien, armed with a hoe, and proceeded, whistling, to restore order in the bed of crushed mignonette. Then Dolly came out with her midday meal, after which the sisters took her back to her room to rest. She slept deeply during the afternoon, only awakening when the shadows were beginning to grow long. Then, looking forth from her window, there came to her the sudden memory of the letter she had forgotten. A gleam of something white under the cedar-tree where her couch had been caught her eye, and she realized immediately that it must have fallen there when they gathered up her rugs. The house was very still and seemed deserted. She guessed that those of the family who were not occupied in farm-work were gathering apples for cider in the orchard on the other side of the building.

There was no one to send for her letter, and that sense of shame with which the bare thought of Rotherby now inspired her urged her strongly not to leave it for any chance comer to discover. She was stronger far than she had been, and she made swift decision to use her strength. She got up from her bed and slipped on her shoes. She was already dressed, and she only paused to throw around her a shawl that Dolly had left handy. Then, with an odd feeling of guilt, she opened her door and went out into the dark oak passage.

The stairs were steep and winding. She knew that they would try her endurance and prepared to descend with caution. The dizziness of weakness came upon her as she reached them. And she hung upon the rail of the banisters to gather her forces.

In those moments of semi-helplessness there came to her the sound of voices talking in the kitchen below, but having embarked upon the expedition she was in no mood to draw back on account of a little physical weakness and it did not even cross her mind to call for help. Resolutely she summoned her strength, and, conquering her giddiness, began to descend.

It seemed to her that the stairs had become inexplicably steeper, and her hold upon the rail had developed into a desperate clinging with both hands before she rounded the final curve which brought her in sight of the bottom. Her heart was thumping uncontrollably, and her legs were almost refusing to support her by the time she reached the last stair. It was necessity rather than expediency that induced her to sit down there at the foot to gather her forces afresh.

So sitting, with her throbbing head in her hands, there came to her words at first dimly, then with a growing meaning which, too late she realized, were never intended for her ear to hear.

“I’d do it in a minute—you know I would,—” it was Maggie’s voice, but strangely devoid of its customary cheery lilt—“if it weren’t for Mother. But—I believe it would kill her if another of us went wrong.”

“I’m not asking you to go wrong!” Swift and decided came the answer in Oliver’s voice. “I wouldn’t do such a thing. I love you too much for that. Good heavens! Don’t you think your honour is as dear to me as it is to your mother—or Arthur?”

“Yes, but—” Unmistakable distress sounded in Maggie’s rejoinder. She gave a little sob and left it at that.

“Well, then!” said Oliver, in the tone of one who scores a triumph.

There was a brief pause, then a sudden movement, followed by a muffled whisper from Maggie that was half protest and half appeal. “I don’t know what Arthur would say. He’d half kill you.”

“Oh, damn Arthur!” came the cheery response. “Why can’t he get a girl of his own? P’raps he’d be more human then.”

“He wouldn’t—he wouldn’t! Nothing would make him that, so long as—” Again the words broke off in half-hearted remonstrance.

“Rot!” said Oliver. “Once you were married to me, he’d have to come into line.”

“No—no, he wouldn’t! You don’t understand.” Maggie’s answer came with a sound of tears. “You don’t know him if you think that. He would simply kick you out of the place. And Mother—Mother would break her heart if I went too.”

“Don’t cry!” said Oliver softly.

Maggie was plainly sobbing against his shoulder. “I can’t help it. Oh, Oliver, we’ll have to be patient. We’ll have to wait.”

“But what are we going to wait for?” There was a hint of exasperation in Oliver’s query. “I don’t see what we gain by waiting. You’re twenty-eight. I’m thirty-two. We’ve both of us waited five years as it is.”

“Yes—yes! But let’s go on waiting—there’s a darling. Something’ll happen some day. Something’s sure to happen. And then we’ll get married.” Urgent entreaty backed the words. “It’s no good getting married if we can’t live together. And we—we—we are—very happy—as we are.”

More tears followed the assurance. Maggie was evidently aware of pleading a lost cause.

“Oh, we’re awfully happy, aren’t we?” said Oliver, grimly humorous. “Don’t cry, darling! I want to think. There’s no law against our getting married—even if we don’t live together—that I can see, is there? It would make things more sure anyway, and I guess we’d be a lot happier.”

“Oh, Oliver! Deceiving everyone! I couldn’t do it! Why, I’d be miserable every time I went to church!”

“No, you wouldn’t. There’d be no harm done to anyone. You’re old enough to manage your own life, and no one has any right to know how you do it.” Oliver spoke with blunt decision. “You love me and I love you, and if we choose to marry—well, it doesn’t matter a damn to anyone else. I may not be good enough for you, but that’s your business, not Arthur’s. If I’m good enough to love, I’m good enough to marry.”

“Yes.” Dubiously came Maggie’s answer. “But then, Oliver darling, what’s the use? We couldn’t be together any more than we are. And we——”

“That’s rot, isn’t it?” Vigorously Oliver overruled her argument. “Well, anyway, you marry me and see!”

“Ah, but I’m afraid. The beast—the beast might do you a mischief!”

There was almost a wail in Maggie’s words, but Oliver’s hearty laugh drowned it. “Bless the girl! What next? Seems I’d better carry a pitchfork about with me. No, now listen! I’ll fix it all up, and I won’t even tell you till it’s all cut and dried. Then one day you and I’ll go into Fordestown to market, and when we come back we’ll—” Inarticulate whispering ended the sentence. “There now! Will you do that?”

“I don’t know, Oliver. I’m frightened. I’m sure it isn’t right, and yet I don’t know why.”

Maggie’s answer sounded piteous, yet somehow Frances knew that her arms were clinging about her lover’s neck.

There came a pause, then Oliver’s cheery voice. “There now! Don’t you fret yourself! You may take it from me, it is right. And I’m going in to Fordestown to-morrow to get it settled. Mind, I shan’t say another word to you till everything is ready. You won’t back out? Promise!”

“Back out! Oh, darling—darling!”

Broken sounds came from Maggie that brought Frances to an abrupt realization of her position. She straightened herself and got up. Her knees were still trembling, but she forced them into action. She tottered down the passage to the nearest door and out on to the brick path that led to the garden.

The sun was going down. She passed between tall hollyhocks and sunflowers into the kitchen-garden. The lawn lay beyond. It was further than she had thought, and her strength was failing her. She came upon a rough bench set against the wall out of sight of the house and dropped down upon it with a feeling that she could go no further.

How long she had sat there she could not have said, for she was very near to fainting, when there came the sound of a man’s feet on the path beside her, and, looking up, she saw Arthur in his shirt-sleeves, a spade on his shoulder.

He stopped beside her, and drove his spade into the ground.

“Miss Thorold!” he said. “What are they all thinking of? How did you come here?”

She tried to smile in answer, but her lips felt very cold and numb. “Oh, I just—walked,” she said.

“You—walked!” Amazement and displeasure sounded in his voice. “Where is everyone?” he said. “Where is Maggie?”

He swung on his heel as if he would go in search of her, but Frances put forth an urgent hand to detain him.

“Don’t go! It—really doesn’t matter. Maggie is busy—getting the tea. I—I didn’t like to interrupt her. I give too much trouble as it is.”

Arthur growled something very deeply into his chest, but he checked his first impulse at her behest.

“Well, but what are you doing here? Why did you come out?” he asked, after a moment.

She hesitated to answer him. Then: “I dropped a letter,” she said. “It is under the cedar-tree. I just thought I would fetch it.”

“You must be mad,” he said. “Stay here while I fetch it!”

He strode away, and she sat and waited for his return, shivering against the wall, wondering if Maggie and Oliver had separated, wishing with all her heart that she had not overheard their talk.

She heard the tramp of his heavy boots returning. He came back to her.

“The letter is not here,” he said briefly. “Does it matter?”

She started. “Not there! But—I thought I saw it from my window. I thought——”

“It is not there,” he repeated. “It has probably blown away. Is it of any great importance?”

His tone seemed to challenge her. She looked up and met his eyes watching her with a certain hardness.

“No,” she said, and wondered what impulse moved her to utter the word.

“You are sure?” he said.

She smiled a little at his insistence. “Yes, quite sure. Please don’t trouble about it! It will probably turn up later.”

He dropped the subject without further discussion. “I had better carry you back now,” he remarked, and stooped to lift her.

She drew back sharply. “Oh, don’t, please! I can walk quite well.”

“You’re not going to walk,” he said, and in a moment the strong brown arms encompassed her.

She abandoned protest. Somehow he made her feel like a child, and she knew that resistance was useless. It was not a dignified situation, but it appealed to her sense of humour, and as he bore her solidly back along the paths between the hollyhocks she uttered a breathless little laugh.

“What a giant you are!” she said.

“So you’re not angry?” he said.

“Why, no! I am obliged to you. To be quite honest, I rather doubt if I could have walked back without some help.”

“Then it is just as well I am here to carry you,” he rejoined.

There was no sound of voices as he entered the house, and Frances breathed a sigh of thankfulness.

He carried her straight through and up to her room. “I hope you will not attempt that again before you are fit for it,” he said, as he deposited her upon the bed.

“Thank you very much. I hope I shall soon be fit,” said Frances.

He lingered in the doorway, his rugged face in shadow. “I hope you won’t,” he said suddenly and unexpectedly, and in a moment flung away down the passage awkwardly, precipitately, as if he feared he had stayed too long.

“Good gracious!” whispered Frances to the lengthening shadows. “What—on earth—did he mean by that?”

But there was only the queer uneven beating of her heart to answer her in the silence.

CHAPTER VII
THE PATH THROUGH THE WILDERNESS

Frances slept badly that night. There were a good many things to trouble her and keep her brain at work. The thought of Maggie’s clandestine love affair worried her most, though why this should have been so she could not have said. There seemed to be a league among the sisters against their brother’s authority, and she felt that against her will she had been drawn into it. She would have given anything not to have overheard that talk in the kitchen, but she found it impossible to forget it. And yet to interfere in any way seemed to her impossible. Maggie was of an age to direct her own affair, as surely Arthur ought to recognize. Her love for young Oliver was evidently of long standing, and, however unsuitable it might appear, no third person had the right to attempt to frustrate it. To Frances, who had guarded her own independence so jealously for so long, such a course was inexcusable. But the secret worried her. There seemed to be forces at work at Tetherstones of which she had no knowledge—sinister forces with which Maggie obviously felt unable to cope. And Arthur was so strange, so headlong, so impossible to manage.

Arthur! The thought of Arthur held her in a kind of breathless wonder. The man amazed her at every turn, but he never awaked in her that palpitating doubt with which she had always regarded Rotherby. He might possess violent impulses, but he was upright, he was honourable. What he said, he meant. There was even something terrible in his simplicity. He was a man who would suffer the utmost torture sooner than betray a friend. He was also a man who might inflict it without scruple upon an enemy who had incurred his vengeance.

His attitude towards herself had a curious effect upon her. She was aware of a strong bond of sympathy between them. They were rebels together. They had eaten stones for bread. They could not remain as strangers. There was that about him that made her wonder if he had ever had a friend before. He stood out above and beyond the rest with a kind of solitary grandeur that strangely moved her—a man who should have made his mark in the world of men, but condemned to till the soil to give them bread—a slave who had been fashioned for a conqueror. The irony of it stirred her strangely. She wondered if anyone else saw in him aught but a tiller of the ground. The old man, his father, perhaps? But no! He had spoken of him with contempt. She had been aware of a hostility scarcely veiled between them. The old man evidently despised him for the very servitude that so plainly galled his soul. Did no one understand him, she wondered? And then the memory of the mother, white-haired and patient, came to her, and by a flash of intuition she realized that here lay the explanation of many things. He had harnessed himself to the plough for her sake. She could not doubt it. Though she had never seen them together, she knew that she had discovered the truth, and she was conscious, poignantly conscious, of a feeling akin to indignation. How could any woman accept such a sacrifice?

Of her own affairs, of Montague Rotherby, she thought but little that night. The inner voice that had so urgently warned her no longer spoke within her soul. The need was past. Inexplicably, the attraction of the man had gone with it. The loss of her letter had vexed her temporarily, but now she had almost forgotten it. By her silence she would sever all connection with him. She judged him as not ardent enough to follow up the quest. The madness was over and would never return. Once again, and this time with a sense of comfort, she reflected that she was not the type of woman to appeal to such a man for long. That last letter of his had probably been one of farewell. On the whole she was not sorry that she had not read it. She wanted to forget him as soon as possible and with him the bitter humiliation he had made her suffer. It was better to forget than to hate. No; decidedly it was not on his account that Frances passed a restless night.

With the early morning came sleep that lasted till the sun was high, and Ruth came in to perch on her bed while she breakfasted. She had been out in the cornfields, she said. They were cutting the corn in the field below the Stones. Next week, when Frances was strong enough, they would go and sit among the sheaves. Or perhaps they might go to-day if Uncle Arthur would take them in the dog-cart. The idea attracted Frances though she only smiled. The day was hot, and she was feeling better. She had a desire to go out into the sunshine, away from the old grey house and its secrets, of which already she felt she knew too much.

She did not know that the child had read acquiescence in her silence till later, when Dolly suddenly announced that the cart would be round in half-an-hour, and they must hurry.

“It would do you good to spend the whole day out to-day,” said the practical Dolly, whom Frances suspected of being secretly a little tired of a job that had ceased to be interesting. “Elsie and Lucy and Nell will all be to and fro if you should want anything. And no one could possibly catch cold on a day like this. Milly and I are going to Wearmouth to do some shopping, but I shall be back in good time to get you to bed. Dr. Square said he might not come to-day. If he does, it won’t hurt him to ride as far as the cornfield to see you.”

It had evidently been all talked over and arranged beforehand, and Frances had no objection to raise. In fact, the prospect delighted her.

“I should like to take my sketching-block,” she said. “And I shall be quite happy.”

So, armed with her beloved box of paints and brushes, she presently descended to find Arthur waiting somewhat moodily at the door with a pie-bald cob harnessed to a light dog-cart. His dark face brightened at the sight of her. He took the pipe from between his teeth and knocked out its contents on the heel of his boot.

“Better this morning?” he asked, as she came out.

She smiled at him, panting from her descent of the stairs, but resolutely ignoring her weakness. “Yes, I am much better. I am as strong as a horse to-day. Are you really going to drive me to the cornfields? How kind of you!”

“Jump up!” said Arthur. “You go to his head, Dolly! I’ll help Miss Thorold.”

He issued his orders with characteristic decision, and they were obeyed. Almost before she knew it, Frances found herself lifted on to the high seat where he wrapped a rug about her knees and pushed a cushion behind her.

The next moment he mounted beside her and took the reins. Dolly stepped back. The horse leaped forward.

“Hold on!” said Arthur.

They were out in the winding lane before Frances found breath to ask for Ruth. “Won’t she come with us? Have you forgotten her?”

“We never trouble about Ruth,” he replied. “She finds her own way everywhere. She will probably go across the stepping stones and get there first.”

“Are you never afraid of her coming to harm?” she asked.

“She never does,” said Arthur. He spoke briefly, and immediately turned from the subject. “Do you mind if we go for a stretch first? The horse is fresh.”

“Mind!” said Frances. “I’d love it!”

He laughed, and she knew in a moment that the plan was by no means an impromptu one. “It will do you good,” he said, and turned the horse’s head towards the moors.

They came out upon an open road and went like the wind. The day was glorious, the distant tors all blue and purple in the sunshine. They followed a direction she had never explored, and presently turned off up a wide track that seemed to wind into the very heart of the hills.

“Afraid it’s rather bumpy,” said Arthur. “Do you mind?”

“I mind nothing,” she answered simply.

He glanced at her. “You are not disliking it?”

She drew a long breath. “I don’t believe I ever knew what life could be before to-day.”

He said no more. The guiding of the horse took up all his attention. They came presently to a track crossing the one they were following.

He reined in as if he had reached his destination. Frances looked about her. The place was lonely beyond description. Here and there vast boulders pushed through the short grass, surrounded by tufts of heather that seemed to be trying to hide their nakedness. They were closely surrounded by hills, and the gurgle of an invisible stream filled the air with music.

“Have you ever been here before?” said Arthur.

“Never,” she said.

“Yes, you have,” he returned bluntly.

She started a little, and looked about her more attentively. Was the place familiar?

He pointed suddenly with his whip along the track they faced. “You and Roger!” he said. “Don’t you remember?”

She uttered a gasp of surprise. “Why—yes! But was it here?”

“It was round the curve of that hill,” he said. “Afterwards, you came on here alone, and lost your way, took the wrong turning. Remember?”

“I wanted to get to Fordestown,” she said. “But I was tired. I fell asleep.”

He nodded. “And then you wandered up to the Stones.”

She felt herself colour. With an effort she answered him. “It wasn’t quite like that. I met—a friend, or rather—he found me here. We got lost in the fog. That was how it happened.”

“Yes,” said Arthur.

He turned the horse up the wild track to the left without further words, and they went on in silence at a walk.

A great stillness brooded about their path. A certain awe had taken possession of Frances. The ruggedness of the place, its austerity, held her like a spell. The high hills shut them in, and the music of many streams was the only sound.

“You are taking me to the Stones?” she said at length, and unconsciously her voice was sunk almost to a whisper.

“Yes,” he said.

They went on up the lonely track. She tried to picture her walk with Montague through the blinding fog. Here she had slipped into bog, there she had stumbled among stones. Then as now, the vague sounds of running water had filled the desolation as with eerie, chanting voices. The smell of bog-myrtle came to her suddenly, and in a moment very vividly the terror of that night was back upon her. The thud of the horse’s hoofs on the wet track fell with a fateful, remorseless beat. She experienced a swift, almost overwhelming desire to turn back.

It must have communicated itself to the man beside her, for he checked the animal with a curt word and brought the swaying cart to a standstill.

“Miss Thorold, what is it? Have I brought you too far?”

The concern in his voice reassured her. She met his look with a smile. “No! I am quite all right. It is only my foolish imagination—playing tricks with me. Shall we go on?”

“Do you wish to go on?” he said.

“Yes. I am longing to see the Stones. I think this is rather a dreadful place, don’t you? It makes one think of”—she stumbled a little—“of human sacrifice. Do you hold your father’s theory about the Stones?”

“I seldom agree with my father about anything,” he returned sombrely. “Yes, you are right. This is a dreadful place. It has a bad name, as I told you before.”

They went on up the grassy track, mounting steadily. The rocky nature of the ground became more and more pronounced as they proceeded. The grass grew more sparsely though the tufts of heather continued.

“Are you frightened?” Arthur asked abruptly.

“No,” said Frances.

He looked at her. “You are sure?”

“What is there to frighten me?” she said.

“You were frightened the last time you came,” he said.

“Oh, that was different. It was foggy. I was lost.” She spoke quickly, with a touch of confusion, aware of the old embarrassment stirring within her.

He turned his eyes deliberately away and stared at the horse’s ears. “Would you be frightened now,” he said, “if a fog came up and you didn’t know the way?”

“Not with you to guide me,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

The hills closed gradually in upon the track till it was little more than a narrow passage, winding among boulders. The horse’s feet clattered upon stones. Quite suddenly the path mounted steeply between two large rocks and disappeared.

“Can we possibly get up there?” said Frances.

The man beside her made no reply. He merely struck the animal with the whip, so that he plunged at the steep ascent, and in a few moments was clambering up it with desperate effort. The cart rocked and jolted, and Frances clung to the rail. They reached the two grey rocks at the summit and passed between them on to a flat open space that shone green in the sunshine.

“This is the place,” said Arthur.

Frances looked all about her and drew a long, deep breath. “Ah! How—wonderful!” she said. “What a wilderness!”

CHAPTER VIII
THE STONES

They stood up all around, forming a great amphitheatre—the great, grey stones that had weathered so many centuries. Stark and grim, sentinels of the ages, they stood in their changeless circle, as they had stood in the early days of the world ere men had learned to subdue the earth.

Frances sat and gazed and gazed with a curious feeling of reverence upon that forgotten place of sacrifice.

“Isn’t it strange?” she whispered to herself. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

And then she turned to the man by her side. “It reminds me of the days when you were a Roman gladiator and I was one of the slaves who sprinkled the saw-dust in the arena.”

He looked at her with his brooding eyes. “So you were a slave?” he said.

“I have always been one,” she answered, with a quizzical lifting of the brows.

“You were not intended for a slave,” he said.

She smiled a little. “May I get down? I should like to walk here.”

“Are you strong enough?” he said.

“Of course I am strong enough. When I am tired, I will curl up and sleep in the sunshine.”

“You’re not afraid?” he said.

She faced him. “Of course I am not afraid. Why should I be?”

He lifted his shoulders slightly. “You were—or I imagined you were—a little while ago.”

“Oh, that was different,” she said. “Anyway, I am not so foolish now. I could sit here for hours and sketch.”

“It has been called the devil’s paradise,” he said rather harshly.

She snapped her fingers and laughed. “I am never afraid of the devil when the sun is out. Are you?”

“Sometimes,” he said.

He jumped to the ground and turned to help her, the reins over his arm.

She slipped down into his hold. “But there is nothing to frighten anyone here,” she said.

Even as she spoke, her heart misgave her a little. The Stones looked more imposing from the ground. Some of them had an almost threatening aspect. They seemed to crouch like gigantic monsters about to spring.

“It is certainly a wonderful place,” she said. “And the farm is close by?”

“Just down the hill on the other side,” he said. “It takes its name from them. Some bygone race probably used the place for sacrifice. The actual Tetherstones to which the victims were said to have been fastened are over there, close to the cattle-shed in which Ruth found you. The shed is just out of sight below the brow of the hill.”

“It is a wonderful place,” Frances said again.

She relinquished his arm, and began to walk a few steps over the grass. The man stood motionless, watching her. His brows were drawn. He had a waiting look.

Suddenly she turned and came back to him. She was smiling, but her face was pale. “Mr. Dermot, I am not sure that I do want to stay here after all,” she said. “There’s something I can’t quite describe—something uncanny in the atmosphere.”

“You want to go?” he said.

She shivered sharply, standing in the full sunshine. “I don’t want to be left alone here.”

“No,” he said, in his brief way. “And I don’t mean you to be here alone.” He put out a hand and pointed to a curiously shaped stone so poised that it seemed to be on the point of rolling towards them. “Do you see that? That is one of the great tetherstones. It is called the stone of sacrifice. It is so balanced that a child could make it rock, but no one could move it from its place. There are marks on that stone that scientists declare have been made by human hands, places where staples have been driven in, and so cunningly devised that prisoners chained to those staples were unharmed so long as they remained passive. But the moment they strained for freedom, the stone rocked slowly to and fro and they were crushed—gradually ground to death.”

“Oh, don’t!” Frances cried. “How gruesome—how horrible!”

“A devil’s paradise!” he said.

“But why did you bring me here?” she protested. “Why do you tell me these dreadful things?”

He shrugged his shoulders again. “I brought you here to satisfy your curiosity. My father will tell you much more horrible things than that. His book is full of them.”

“Let us go!” she said, shuddering. “I won’t come here again.”

“As you wish,” he said. “There are certainly pleasanter places.”

He helped her back into the cart, and wrapped the rug about her knees. As he did so, with his face turned from her he spoke again in a tone that affected her very strangely.

“Miss Thorold, I haven’t told you everything. There is a much more modern tragedy connected with this place which I haven’t told you of. It isn’t a subject that is ever mentioned among us, and I can’t go into any details. But—you’ve probably discovered by this time that there is something that makes us different from the rest of the world. It is—that.”

He spoke with an effort, and for the first time in all her knowledge of men there came to Frances that tender, motherly feeling that comes to every woman when she is face to face with a man’s suffering.

She sat for a moment or two without moving or speaking; then she put out a hesitating hand and touched his shoulder. “I am sorry,” she said very gently.

He drew in his breath sharply, but still he did not look at her. “I have never spoken of it to anyone outside before. But you are somewhat different. You have been through the mill, and you are capable of understanding?”

“I hope so,” she said.

He jerked up his head with an odd movement of defiance. “There’s one thing I would like you to know,” he said. “Though I am no more than a country clod and grind my living out of the stones, I’ve made a success of it. There’s not a single farmer hereabouts who can say that he has a better show than mine. In fact, they know quite well that Tetherstones beats them all.”

“That was worth doing,” said Frances.

“Yes. It was worth doing. But now that it’s done, anyone could run it—anyone with any experience. Oliver could run it.” He spoke contemptuously.

“Then why not let him,” suggested Frances, “and take a holiday yourself?”

“Let him!” He turned upon her almost violently. “Leave Oliver to run this show! You don’t know—” He pulled himself up. “Of course you don’t know. How should you? Oliver is very useful, but he is only a labourer after all. I don’t see myself putting him in my place. He thinks too much of himself as it is.”

“Ah!” Frances said, with an unpleasant feeling of duplicity at her heart. “But you like him, don’t you? He is a good sort?”

“I hope he is a good sort,” Arthur said grimly. “He needs to be kept in his place. I know that much. And I’ll see that it’s done, too.”

He looked at her hard with the words, as if challenging a reply. But Frances made none. Her years of rigorous work had taught her to maintain silence where she felt speech to be futile. She never wasted her words.

And in a moment Arthur relaxed. “I couldn’t leave my post in any case,” he said. “There are—other reasons.”

“Yes,” Frances said, glad of the change of topic. “I realize that.”

“Do you? How?” Again that peremptory, challenging look met hers.

But she answered him with absolute simplicity. On this point at least she felt no qualms. “On account of your mother,” she said. “I guessed that.”

His face changed, softening magically. “Yes, my mother,” he said. “But what made you guess it?”

“It just came to me,” she said. “I knew you must be fond of someone.”

He looked away from her to a gap of blue distance in front of them, and for a few seconds there was silence between them. Then: “Thank you for saying that,” he said, “and for thinking it. You have an extraordinary insight. Do you read everyone’s motives in this way? Or is it only mine?”

There was a hint of melancholy in the question, as though he invited ridicule to cover an unacknowledged pathos. But Frances did not answer it, for she had no answer ready. She felt as if in his silence he had lifted the veil and given her a glimpse of his lonely soul. She saw him as it were surrounded by a great solitude which she could not cross. And so she turned away.

“I am not a great reader of character,” she said. “Only I know that there is only one way of turning our stones into bread. And if we don’t find it, we starve.”

“Yes, starve!” He repeated the word with his eyes still upon the blue distance. “I’m used to starving,” he said slowly. “It’s a sort of chronic state with me.”

The sound of the reaping-machine came whirring through the sunlit silence, and the man pulled himself together with a gesture of impatience. “Well, I suppose we must go. You have seen the Stones, and I hope you are satisfied.”

“I am glad you brought me,” she said. “But I don’t think I shall come again.”

He looked at her, and she thought there was a hint of relief on his face. “You have seen all there is to see,” he said. “I think you are wise.”

He mounted into the cart beside her and walked the horse forward over the grass.

“There is little Ruth,” said Frances.

The child had come suddenly into view from behind one of the great stones, moving as was her wont lightly and fearlessly, her face upturned. She was carrying a small bunch of harebells, and as she came towards them she stooped and felt among the grass for more. Her soft, chirruping song rose up like the humming of a fairy. Finding some of the wiry stalks she sought, she knelt down in the sunshine to gather them.

“How happy she is!” whispered Frances.

The man said nothing. He walked the horse straight up to the little kneeling figure and reined in beside it.

“Is that you, Uncle Arthur?” said little Ruth.

“Yes,” he said. “Come here to me and I will take you back to the corn-field!”

She got up and came to him. He stooped and grasped her shoulder, guiding her to the step.

“Is Miss Thorold there?” said the child.

“Yes, darling. I am here,” Frances answered, and made room for her in the seat.

Ruth mounted the step, and in a moment nestled in beside her. “I gathered these flowers for you,” she said.

“Thank you, darling.” Frances took the flowers and stooped to kiss her.

“I’ve been waiting for you a long, long time,” Ruth said. “Have you liked your drive?”

“I have loved it,” Frances said with simplicity.

“Thank you,” said Arthur quietly, on the other side.

They passed on through the great circle and out between the stones on to a narrow track that led steeply downwards to a lane.

The buzz of a car rose from below them as they approached it, and Arthur drew in his horse. The car went by unseen, but to Frances in the high cart there came a sudden, sharp sense of insecurity that was almost panic, and for a moment she ceased to breathe. She knew that car.

Her agitation subsided gradually. They went on down the lane and turned into the corn-field.

“I must leave you here,” Arthur said.

He helped them both down and settled them comfortably with a rug and cushions in the shade of the hedge.

“Will you be all right here?” he asked Frances. “I will tell Elsie to look after you.”

“I shall be quite all right,” she assured him. “Please don’t let anyone waste any time over me!”

He smiled and turned away. She watched him go with an answering smile upon her lips.

Roger came up and lay down beside them. The peace of a perfect day descended upon the harvest-field. The fragrance of the cut corn was like an oblation.

“Are we alone?” said Ruth.

“Yes, darling. Why?”

The little girl came pressing close to her side. “Because I’ve got something to tell you, and it’s a secret. I met a man to-day in the lane, who said he was a friend of yours. He didn’t tell me who he was, but it was the friend who wrote that letter to you. And he said—would I tell you that he will be at the Stones again to-night at ten.”

CHAPTER IX
THE LETTER

“At the Stones again to-night.” All through that morning in the corn-field the words were running in Frances’ brain. She tried to sketch, but her hand seemed to have lost its cunning, and there were times when a great trembling seized her. His letter she had thrust out of her mind. She had not read it, nor had she greatly desired to know what it contained. But his message was different, and again with the words she seemed to hear that rushing of an unseen car, and recalled the man, his bearing half-insolent, half-cynical, the curious persistence with which he had pursued her, the nameless attraction of his personality. She did not want to answer his message. She did not want to meet him. But yet—but yet—deep in the very heart of her she knew that a meeting was inevitable. A reckoning must come, and she was bound to face it. She might, if she so chose, avoid him now, but she could not avoid him always. Sooner or later she would have to endure her ordeal, and tell him—plainly tell him—that the madness was over and her eyes were open. She was not, and never had been, the type of woman which apparently he had taken her to be. And if he could not learn this by her silence she must summon strength to put the matter baldly into words. She shrank from the thought, but brought herself back to it again and again. The idea of writing to him presented itself, but she discarded it with an even greater distaste. When the ordeal was over, she desired—earnestly desired—that no trace of it should be left behind. No written word from her was in his possession now, nor should it ever be. She wanted to thrust away this unclean thing that had come into her life so that no vestige of it remained. And not until she had done this would she feel free.

So she argued with herself all through the long sunny morning, while the bundles of corn fell in ever-increasing numbers, and little Ruth flitted to and fro playing with the long golden strands that she drew from them.

After a while Oliver came up with a smile on his merry face to talk to her, but he had scarcely reached her when there came the sound of a horse’s feet in the lane, and Dr. Square appeared at the gate.

“They told me I should find you here,” he said, and came in and sat down beside her, while Oliver saluted and went away.

She told the doctor of her drive in the dog-cart to the Stones, and he expressed some surprise that Arthur had taken her there.

“He usually avoids the place like the plague,” he said.

Her curiosity awakened. “Do you know why?” she said.

“Yes, I know,” said Dr. Square.

She looked at him. “Is it a secret?”

She thought his red, wholesome face had a dubious look, but he answered her without actual hesitation. “Not that I know of. Naturally they don’t talk about it here at Tetherstones. It was the scene of a very unhappy tragedy some six years ago.” His eyes rested upon Ruth busy among the corn-sheaves at a little distance. “It was one of the sisters,” he said, “the child’s mother,—a lovely girl—a lovely girl. She died up there in a blizzard one winter night. She was out of her mind at the time. She took the little one with her. When we found them, she was frozen stiff, but the child still lived. Poor mite—poor little girl! She’d better have gone with her mother.”

“Oh, why do you say that?” Frances said. “She is happy. There are plenty to love her.”

The doctor’s eyes dwelt very tenderly upon the little figure. “I say it because it is true,” he said. “She is not like other children, Miss Thorold. She never will be. She is just—‘a little bit of heaven’ strayed down to earth. She is one of those the gods love.”

“Oh, do you mean that?” Frances said.

He nodded. “I mean it—yes. I told them long ago—the child won’t live to grow up. They all know it.”

“But they take so little care of her!” said Frances.

“It is far better she should lead a natural life,” he said. “She is just like a flower of the field. She will have her day—her little day, Miss Thorold. They are wise to leave her alone. Cooped up within four walls she would never have lived so long. Freedom is life to her.”

“I often wonder that they dare to let her wander as she does,” Frances said.

“It is far better,” said Dr. Square. He turned to her with a smile. “Has it never occurred to you that she is under special protection? I have often thought it. They are all too busy to look after her, yet she is safe and happy. I think she is one of the happiest little souls I have ever met. I have never seen her cry. We need not pity her too much. In fact, I sometimes think she is hardly to be pitied at all.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Frances said.

The doctor’s philosophy appealed to her. She liked the simple fashion with which he regarded life. She would not question him further concerning the Dermot family, for some sense of loyalty restrained her. But when he was gone, she pondered over the matter. Why did they stay in a place that contained such painful associations for them? She had Arthur’s word for it that he had made a success of the farm, and every indication pointed to the fact. But it had been an uphill fight. Why had he chosen to make it there?

Midday came, and with it Lucy and Nell to take her back to the house. It was no great distance across the field to the garden, but it taxed her powers somewhat, for the ground was rough. She was glad when they reached the shade of the cedar-tree and she could sit down on the bench beneath it to rest.

“You had better not go to the corn-field again,” said Nell.

And she acquiesced. She would not do anything strenuous for the rest of the day. The thought of her letter recurred to her, and she looked about but saw nothing of it. Evidently it had blown away.

After a brief interval she continued her journey to the house where Maggie joined them with kindly concern on her rosy face.

“You do look tired,” she said. “Come and sit down in the kitchen for a little and see Mother scalding the cream!”

The kitchen was oak-raftered and possessed an immense open fire-place with a brick oven at the side. Frances went in and was welcomed by Mrs. Dermot in her gentle, tired fashion, and made to sit down in a high-backed, wooden arm-chair.

The girls buzzed around her, and she had almost begun to forget her own pressing problem in the homely atmosphere when a sudden angry shout rang through the house, and in a moment every voice in the kitchen was hushed.

Frances, who was speaking to Mrs. Dermot at the moment saw her put her hand to her heart. Maggie came to her quickly and put an arm about her. But she spoke no word, and the silence was terrible.

Then from the stone passage outside came a voice, Arthur’s voice, short and peremptory.

“I’ll stand no more of this, and you know it. Let me pass!”

There was a brief pause, then an answering voice—the broken, quavering voice of an old man. “I have no wish to keep you here. You come into my room, tamper with my belongings, threaten me. I only ask you to go. What have I done that I should be treated like this?”

“What have you done?” A sound that was inexpressibly bitter followed the words. “Well, not much on this occasion perhaps. But I warn you, it had better not happen again. I will have no more of it. You understand?”

“No.” Sudden dignity dispelled all agitation in the rejoinder. “I do not understand how my son who, if he is not a gentleman, has at least had the upbringing of one, as well as the advantage of good birth, can bring himself to treat his father with a brutality that he would not display towards the dog in the stable. I protest against your behaviour, though I am as fully aware as you are that I have no remedy.”

“None, sir, none.” Again that horrible jarring note was in Arthur’s voice. “It would be as well if you always bore that in mind. I am the master here, as I have told you before.”

“You are a damned blackguard,” said the old man in a voice that was deadly cold. “Now leave my room!”

There came the instant closing of a door, a step outside, and Arthur entered. The veins stood out on his forehead; his face was terrible. He looked round the kitchen, paused for a moment with his eyes upon Frances as if he would speak; then, without a word, took a glass from the dresser, and went out to a pump in the yard.

Mrs. Dermot drew a deep breath and gently released herself from Maggie’s arm. She turned as if to follow her son, but in a moment checked the impulse and busied herself over the fire.

He entered again almost immediately, the tumbler half full in his hand. He went straight to his mother and murmured something in a low voice. She shook her head in silence. He drained the glass and set it down. Again his look went to Frances, and again he seemed on the verge of speech. Then a faint sob came from Lucy, and he swung round upon her with a scowl.

She recoiled from him, and instantly Nell the valiant sprang into the breach. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Arthur, stop ramping!” she said. “Go away if you can’t control yourself, and come back when you feel better! We’ll have dinner ready in twenty minutes.”

“Then you can send mine out to the farm-yard,” he rejoined curtly. “I’ll wait for it there.”

He was gone with the words, and there went up a breath of relief from the kitchen at his exit.

“Hadn’t we better get to work?” said Mrs. Dermot in her weary, subdued voice. “Father will be wanting his dinner too.”

Frances stood up. “I will go up to my room,” she said.

“Shall I come?” said Elsie.

“No, please don’t! I can manage quite well alone.” She passed the girl with a smile, intent upon removing herself before they should discover her presence to be an embarrassment. As she left the kitchen she heard a buzz of talk arise among the girls, and one very audible remark from Nell pursued her as she went. “Oh, we’ll get his dinner for him. It’s a pity he doesn’t always feed among the pigs.”

Frances passed on, feeling oddly shaken. As she rounded the corner of the stairs, Oliver came clattering in from the back premises and overtook her. He stopped her without ceremony.

“I just want a word with you, Miss Thorold. Do you mind? Don’t think it’s cheek on my part. It’s too urgent for that.”

She stood and faced him. “Oliver, what’s the matter?”

“Oh, don’t worry!” he said. “Don’t be scared! It’s just this. A friend of yours was just outside here to-day, asking for you. That is to say, he asked Ruth about you, for I asked her what he wanted and she said he gave her a message for you.”

“Yes; that is so,” Frances said. “But what—what——”

“What business is it of mine?” he said. “It isn’t my business, that’s straight. But you just listen a minute! I’m not rotting. You get that friend of yours out of the way—quick! Understand? There’s no time to be lost. If he stays in the neighbourhood there’ll be trouble. You tell him to go, Miss Thorold! It’s a friend’s advice, and for heaven’s sake, take it!”

He spoke with great earnestness, and she saw that there were beads of perspiration on his forehead.

“It’s true as gospel,” he said. “He’s in danger. I can’t tell you what it is. But I’ll take my dying oath it’s true. It’s up to you to warn him, and if you don’t—well, you’ll regret it all your life, that’s all.”

He paused and wiped his forehead on his shirt-sleeve. She stood and looked at him, conscious of a feeling of dread that made her physically cold. What was the meaning of these tumults and warnings, these mysterious under-currents that seemed to be perpetually drawing her towards tragedy? What was the direful secret of this sinister house?

Oliver saw her distress, and dismissed his own with a jerk. “Don’t be upset!” he said. “There’s no harm done yet—not so far as I know. But don’t let him hang round any longer! If Arthur were to get a sight of him—” He broke off. “That’s all. Hope we shall see you in the field again to-morrow. It’s good weather for harvesting. We ought to be carrying by the end of the week if it lasts.”

She knew from his tone that he was speaking for the benefit of a third person, but she did not turn her head to look. She knew without that that Arthur was standing at the end of the passage, and she began to ascend the stairs with a distinct feeling that escape was imperative. Oliver went away into the kitchen, and she rounded the curve of the old staircase and began to quicken her pace. But her knees were so weak and her breathing so short that she thought she would never reach the top. Then, with a sudden start of consternation, she heard the tread of Arthur’s feet below, and knew that he was coming up behind her.

She mustered all her strength then in desperation, for she felt she could not face him at that moment; and gasping, stumbling, unnerved, she practically fled before him.

The door of her room stood open, but she lacked the power to close it as she entered. She could only stagger to the nearest chair and fall into it, panting.

He came on up the stairs. She heard his feet upon the bare oak. He reached the open door and stopped.

“Miss Thorold!” he said.

Then he must have seen her condition, for he came in without further ceremony.

“You’ve been frightened,” he said.

She could not answer him because of the wild palpitation of her heart. He bent over her; then suddenly knelt beside her, and she felt the strong grip of his hand on hers.

“There’s nothing to frighten you,” he said, in his deep voice, and she knew that for some reason he was moved.

She leaned her head against the back of the chair, battling with her weakness. “I am not very strong yet,” she managed to say.

“I know—I know! You’ll be better presently. Don’t take any notice of these trifles!”

The gentleness of his voice amazed her; it had the sound of a half-suppressed appeal, and something within her stirred in answer.

“You are very good to me,” she said.

“Good! To you!” There was almost a passionate note in his reply. His grip upon her hand tightened, and then in a moment he seemed to control himself, and very slowly he set her free and rose. “What I wanted to say to you,” he said, “is just that I am sorry that you should have been upset in any way by any unfortunate family disagreements. I don’t know what Oliver was saying to you on the subject; he probably told you that they are by no means unusual. But please take my word for it that it shall not happen again if I can possibly prevent it, and make allowances where you can!”

The appeal was unmistakable this time, and again that sense of comradeship possessed her in spite of all misgiving. She smiled at him without speaking, and somehow his answering smile sent a quick thrill to her heart.

He turned to go, then abruptly wheeled back to her. “One thing more! I’ve found your letter—the one you lost in the garden. Do you want it back, or may I destroy it?”

She gave a gasp of surprise. “You have found it? Where—where was it?”

“In the garden,” he repeated, with a certain doggedness.

She looked up at him. “Where is it now?”

“In my pocket,” he said. “Do you want it?”

“I think I had better have it,” she said.

“You are sure?” His eyes met hers with the old challenging look, and her own fell beneath them.

Nevertheless she held out her hand. “Please!” she said.

The next moment she found the missing letter thrust into her fingers, but she did not even look at it. She was staring at his retreating figure as he went out and closed the door sharply behind him.

CHAPTER X
REVELATION

She had it in her hand at last—that letter which had caused her so much doubt and anxiety. She sat there holding it after the closing of the door, wondering, puzzled, troubled. He had found it—he must have found it—under the cedar-tree the night before. Why had he kept it back? Or, having kept it, why did he give it to her now? Suspicion stabbed her, and she turned the envelope over. Had it been opened? It was impossible to say. It had obviously been rubbed from having been carried in a pocket; but there was no sign of weather-stain upon it. She was instantly convinced that it had not lain out all night. Yet why had he kept it?

An odd thought came to her, born of that strange new note of appeal that she had begun to hear in his voice—a thought which sent the blood to her face in a great wave and for a moment almost dazed her. Was it jealousy that had prompted him? He had known that her letter had caused her agitation, that it was from another man. He had almost openly done his best to counteract that other man’s influence upon her. He had taken her to the Stones only that morning in the hope of inducing her to be frank with him regarding her adventure there. It was not curiosity—it could not be mere curiosity—that had actuated him. She recalled his behaviour of the night before when he had carried her in, how he had bluntly given her to understand that his own desire was to keep her there as long as possible. And then Oliver’s warning flashed upon her, illuminating all the rest. With a gasp she faced the situation, suspicion merging into certainty, amazing but irrefutable. He cared for her, this extraordinary man who ruled at Tetherstones with so heavy a hand. For some reason wholly inexplicable to her, his fancy had lighted upon her—just as had Montague Rotherby’s in an idle hour. But with what a difference! It was at this point that Frances arose and went unsteadily to her dressing-table to lean upon it and stare in stupefaction at her own reflection. Had all the world gone mad? What on earth did they see in her—the faded, the drab, the tired? She gazed for a long, breathless space, and slowly her eyes widened. What did she see in herself? Was there not something present here that she had never seen before? What was it? What was it? A sudden tremor went through her, and she drew back.

What were those words he had said to her that morning? Vividly the memory rushed upon her, and his eyes—the look in his eyes—as they had rested upon her. . . . “You were not intended for a slave.”

Was it this that they saw in her—a slave who had broken free—her shackles in the dust? Was it this that she had suddenly seen in herself?

She was quivering from head to foot. A feeling of giddiness came upon her, and she dropped down upon the edge of the bed. Something had frightened her, badly frightened her,—something wholly apart from the gloomy secrets of Tetherstones, the undercurrent of rebellion that existed there, the muttered warnings, the element of violence barely masked—something that had looked at her out of her own eyes—something that throbbed very deeply in her own heart—a thing so widely different from anything she had ever know before that she was amazed, that she was actually terrified, beyond thought or speech.

It was this that had stirred within her in answer to that unspoken appeal for understanding. It was this that had inspired that sense of comradeship within her. She had called it intuition, sympathy. But now—she knew now that it had another name. And what was she going to do? How was she going to treat this amazing thing? Was she prepared to let it grow and become great? Was she prepared to yield herself to it, her cherished independence, her very life, and become a slave again? Was she going to stake all she had—all that the unknown future might hold for her—upon one fatal throw? To be absorbed into this tragic atmosphere, to feel the ground unstable beneath her feet, to hear the grim clash of antagonisms shattering the peace, to be in bondage to this man of harsh judgments and unrestrained passions,—to be a slave again, perhaps to cower as Lucy had cowered from his ungoverned fury! But no! She would never do that! Sheer pride came to her aid, and she straightened herself with a little smile of self-ridicule. Why was she permitting this panic? She knew herself well enough to be quite sure she would never do that.

“I believe I could manage him alone,” she reflected. “But in this atmosphere of servitude and oppression—well, of course—” she laughed a faint laugh and felt the better for it—“any man would be bound to become a tyrant—like the Bishop—only worse.” Her letter slipped from her grasp, and she stooped to recover it. Something of the old official attitude was hers as she sat up again and prepared to open it. “Well, we will put a stop to this anyhow,” she said with decision. “And then we must consider the best and safest way of leaving Tetherstones without giving rise to foolish conjecture.”

Again that odd little smile of hers tilted her lips. The feeling of dismay had gone.

“I shall get over it all right,” she said. “It’s a pity of course, but it isn’t big enough yet to hurt me much. If I had been younger—” she lifted her head suddenly—“but dash it, I’m not so old as that. If he wants me he must get rid of his retinue of slaves and take the trouble to win me. But to add me to the number—make me the chief one at that—no, no, no!” She shook her head in humorous negation. “It isn’t good enough, my dear man. Love doesn’t thrive in that soil.”

But even as she said it, a little gibing voice rose up in her soul and mocked her. Who was she to say from what small beginnings Love the Immortal might spring? Like the wonderful, purple flower on the grey stone arch in the Palace garden that no human hand had ever planted!

She opened her letter almost absent-mindedly, and began to read it with an interest as impersonal as she would have bestowed upon the letter of an employer.

“Circe—beloved enchantress,” so the letter ran. “Am I to have no word from you? It is getting urgent, and I have news for you. First, let me make a confession! When I left you that evening at the cottage, I stole one of your sketches—the one of the stepping-stones. I sent it to a friend of mine in town, and have to-day received it back. He speaks very highly of it, and declares you have a living in your talent, if not a fortune. How does that appeal to you? The old woman tells me you are better, but that you are staying on at Tetherstones. I must see you somewhere where we can talk undisturbed. Will you come to the Stones to-night at ten? I will wait for you there.

“Yours with all my love as ever. M. R.”

So that was why he had written a second time! He had news for her. Such news as she had little expected—news that made her heart leap wildly. This was freedom. This was deliverance. Strange that they should have come to her by his hand!

No further doubt existed in her mind with regard to meeting him. She would certainly meet him. She put her letter away with a business-like precision that wholly banished her agitation. It was the best tonic that she could possibly have received. She wondered what had made him take the trouble, and the thought of being under an obligation to him oppressed her for a time, but she thrust it away from her. She could not afford to be too scrupulous in this particular. To make her own living successfully seemed to her at that moment the goal of all desire.

The arrival of Nell with her tray diverted her thoughts. Nell’s face was flushed, her eyes round and indignant.

“A nice family of wild beasts you must think us!” she said, as she dumped the tray on a corner of the dressing-table. “I suppose you’re making plans to leave us by the next train. It’s enough to make you.”

Frances looked at her, and saw that she was near to angry tears. “My dear child,” she said gently, “please put that idea quite out of your mind! When I go—and it will probably be soon now that I am so much better—it won’t be with any feelings of that sort. It will only be with the very warmest gratitude to you all for your goodness to me.”

“Do you mean that?” said Nell.

“Of course I mean it,” Frances said.

“Well, I’m glad—awfully glad.” The girl spoke with honest feeling. “We’re all so fond of you, Miss Thorold, and we do do our best to make you happy. It isn’t our fault that—that—” She checked herself. “I expect you understand that,” she ended more calmly.

“I know you are all much too kind to me,” Frances said.

“We’re not!” said Nell stoutly. “We’d do anything for you. And we hate you to think us rough and ill-mannered. It’s Arthur’s fault if you do, but even he means well.”

“But, my dear, I don’t,” Frances protested.

“Sure?” said Nell.

“Yes, quite sure.” Frances laid a friendly hand on her arm. “I couldn’t think anything horrid of you if I tried,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Nell somewhat pathetically. “It’s rather hard to be judged by one’s men-folk, I sometimes think. They can be such beasts.”

“I expect it depends how you take them,” said Frances practically.

Nell looked at her with a hint of envy. “It’s all right for you,” she said. “You’re not under any man’s heel.”

“I have been,” said Frances, with a sudden memory of the Bishop. “But I never shall be again.”

“You will be if you marry,” said Nell.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” smiled Frances. “But as I am not going to marry, that is beside the point.”

“How nice to be sure you don’t want to!” said the girl with a sigh.

Whereat Frances laughed with a curious lightheartedness. “I didn’t say that, did I? But women of my age think twice before they sign away their liberty.”

“Your age!” Nell stared. “Why, I thought you were quite young!” she said, then blushed violently and turned to go. “Oh, I suppose I oughtn’t to have said that—but it’s true!”

The door closed behind her upon the words, and Frances was left still laughing. “What can have come to them all?” she said. “Me—young! If I am, it’s something in the air that has made me so. I never used to be!”

And then a fantastic thought came to her, checking her laughter. She had never been young before. She had never had time to be young. Could it be possible that for her, here at Tetherstones, life had but just begun? If so—if so—was she right to turn away from aught that life might have to offer?

CHAPTER XI
FAILURE

Well as she knew the way to the Stones from the farm, she had never trodden it save on that one occasion in the fog when Ruth had been her guide. They were approached by a steep and winding lane that led up between high banks to the still steeper track on the open moor that ran directly to them. The whole distance could not be more than half-a-mile, she reflected, as she sat in her room that evening, considering the task that lay before her.

She hoped to accomplish it unobserved, for she knew that the entire household retired by nine, and some of its members even before that hour in view of the early rising that the farm work entailed; and since she had no intention of allowing her interview with Rotherby to be unduly prolonged, she anticipated that the whole adventure need not take more than half-an-hour or at the most three-quarters. She intended to assume an attitude so prosaically business-like that he would find it impossible to return, or even to attempt to return, to their former relations. In fact, she felt herself to be armed at every point and ready for him. For she felt neither attraction nor repulsion for him now, merely a sort of cold-blooded, wholly impersonal, interest in him as a stepping-stone to that independence which was the dream of her life. It seemed he could help her; therefore she was not in a position to throw him aside. But as a man she scarcely regarded him at all. He had become no more than the medium for the attainment of her ambition—the stepping-stone to ambition—no more than that. How often in life do we thus deceive ourselves, imagining ourselves free and not discerning the bonds of our slavery?

The coming of Dolly at nine o’clock was usually the signal of the general retirement of the rest of the family, but Dolly was a little late that night. She and Milly had been absent for the whole day and they evidently had a good deal to talk about. When Dolly came to her eventually, it was nearly half-an-hour later than usual. Frances was sitting by her open window, watching the moon rise.

“So you’re not in bed yet!” said Dolly. “I was afraid you would be tired of waiting.”

“Oh, no,” Frances said. “I can quite easily put myself to bed, thank you. Have you had a good day? Has all gone well?”

“Oh, yes, on the whole. We were rather surprised to come upon Oliver in Fordestown on our way back. It isn’t like him to absent himself without permission, especially at such a time as harvest. Of course we thought Arthur had given him leave. Did you know he was going?”

“I?” said Frances, and stared for a moment in amazement; then suddenly remembered the reason of his going and felt the unwelcome knowledge burn her. “What makes you ask?” she said, after a moment.

“Oh, nothing.” Dolly came to her to take down her hair. “Ruth said he was talking to you just before he went, that was all. I wondered if possibly he might have mentioned what he was going to do and why. It doesn’t matter in the least. There will probably be a row when he comes back, that’s all. He generally manages to get round Arthur, but I don’t think he will this time.”

“I should like to do my hair myself to-night,” said Frances. “Thank you very much. I am really strong enough now, and I am sure you must be very tired after your long day.”

“Just as you like,” said Dolly. “I am not tired at all. In fact, if it weren’t for getting up in the morning, I should feel inclined to sit up and see what happens.”

“But what can happen?” questioned Frances quickly.

Dolly laughed briefly. “Well, he can find himself locked out for the night, that’s all—unless Arthur sits up for him. But I should hardly think he’ll do that. He has got to be up early himself.”

“What will he do if he is locked out?” asked Frances.

“Probably one of the girls—Maggie—would let him in if the coast were clear. If not, he would have to sleep out somewhere. That wouldn’t kill him,” said Dolly cheerfully. “Well, if you are sure you can manage all right—Have you had a good day?”

“Quite, thank you,” said Frances. “Good night! I am feeling much stronger than I was and quite able to put myself to bed.”

“That’s all right,” said Dolly. “It’s much pleasanter to do for oneself, isn’t it?”

She went, and Frances was once more alone. She blew out the candle that Dolly had lighted and settled down again to wait.

Dolly’s news was disquieting. She had hoped that all the household would have been wrapped in slumber before the time arrived for her own expedition, but it seemed that this was not to be. She wondered how she would manage to elude observation. She hated the thought of creeping out by stealth, but there seemed to be no help for it. Time was getting short, and if Arthur proposed to sit up for the defaulter she would have no choice but to risk it.

Slowly the harvest moon mounted in the sky. The boughs of the cedar-tree stood out black against the radiance. She rose at last and wrapped her shawl about her. The night was warm, and she would not be long. She had not heard Arthur pass her door, so she concluded that he was still in the kitchen. She had thought the whole matter out and decided upon her plan of action. There was a casement window in the parlour, easily opened and near the ground. She would not need to pass the kitchen to reach this room, and only the window of the old man’s study overlooked that corner of the garden. She felt sure that he would have retired long since, and even if he had not, he was the last person in the world to act the spy.

She smiled to herself as cautiously she opened her door. A certain spirit of adventure had entered into her; her brain was cool, her nerves steady. She was even conscious of a mischievous feeling of elation. It seemed so long since she had taken any step on her own initiative. She realized that the general sense of bondage had begun to oppress her also.

The passage was in darkness, but a light was dimly burning at the foot of the stairs. Arthur was sitting up, then. She wondered what would happen when Oliver returned, if there would be high words between the two men, if Oliver would manage to vindicate himself, or carry the situation with a high hand as on the previous occasion which she had witnessed. Then Oliver’s warning came back upon her, his urgent words, his barely disguised agitation. He had been very much in earnest when he had counselled her to dismiss Rotherby. What did it all mean, she wondered? Perhaps Rotherby himself might be able to throw light upon the mystery.

She crept to the head of the stairs and paused. As she did so, she heard the soft opening of a door a few yards behind her, and a chink of light gleamed along the passage. It was impossible to return to her room unobserved, but she was dressed in grey and the shawl she wore was a dark one. She knew herself to be invisible against the wall in the gloom, and she stood up against it and waited.

In a second or two a white-clad figure stole out, came bare-footed almost as far as her hiding-place, but stopped just short of it and hung over the banisters to listen. Frances stood rigid, not daring to breathe. In a moment there came a faint sob from the bending figure so close to her, and a sharp dart of compassion went through Frances. She was actually on the verge of betraying herself when there came another sound from along the passage, the creak of footsteps, a piercing whisper—Elsie’s:—“Maggie, what are you doing there? Maggie, come back to bed! We’ll never wake in time to get the cows milked if you don’t.”

Another figure came sturdily into view with the words, and Maggie turned sharply back to meet it.

“Oh, Elsie, I thought you were asleep!” she said.

“I was,” said Elsie. “And then I found you weren’t there. For goodness’ sake, be sensible and come to bed! What is the good of hanging about out here?”

“I’m worried about Oliver,” Maggie said rather piteously. “Will there be a row, do you think?”

“Good gracious, I don’t know,” said Elsie. “Don’t care either. Oliver’s quite capable of taking care of himself. If he isn’t—well, I’ve no use for him. Come along to bed, do, and don’t make a fuss about nothing!”

“Arthur was in a bad mood this evening,” protested Maggie. “I expect that’s why Oliver went without asking. He knew it wouldn’t be any good. Oh, I wish he hadn’t done it. I’m so afraid——”

She left the sentence unfinished, for suddenly there sounded a movement from below, followed by the tread of a man’s feet on the stairs.

“Come on!” said Elsie, and the two girls fled back to their room.

The impulse to follow their example seized upon Frances, but in a moment she restrained it. The chances were very much against his seeing her, and she had fled from him once that day. Pride came to the aid of her courage, and she remained where she was.

He came up the stairs heavily, as if weary. He carried no light, but he had not extinguished the glimmer below. Presumably he had left this for Oliver’s benefit. Further along the passage, the moonlight filtered in through a latticed window, but the stairs themselves were in almost complete darkness.

Slowly he ascended them. He was close to her now, and involuntarily she shrank from him, pressing harder against the wall. She felt her heart begin to beat fast and loud, and wondered if he would hear it in the silence. But he came on and passed her without a sign. Then, as she still stood there palpitating against the wall, she heard him go deliberately along the passage to the door through which the two girls had just retreated, and open it without ceremony.

His voice come to her where she stood. “If either of you comes out again to-night, there’ll be trouble, so take warning and stay where you are!”

He shut the door again without waiting for any reply and turned aside into his own room.

It was her opportunity and she seized it. Swiftly she gathered herself together, stood a second poised and listening, then, hearing nothing, began to descend the stairs.

They creaked beneath her feet notwithstanding her utmost caution, but no sound came to her from above, and she went on with increasing rapidity.

Reaching the foot, she discovered that the glimmer of light came from the half-open kitchen door. Evidently a lamp was burning within, and that seemed to indicate that Arthur meant to return. But her way lay in the opposite direction, and she slipped into the dark passage that led to the parlour.

She thought she knew the place by heart, but there was one thing she had forgotten. Half-way to the parlour, in an angle of the wall, there stood an old oak settle, and into this she suddenly ran headlong. The settle scraped on the stone floor with the force of the impact, and she herself fell over it with arms outstretched, bruised and half-stunned with the violence of the collision. It all took place so rapidly, and her dismay was such, that she scarcely knew what had happened to her ere the sound of feet on the stairs told her that she was discovered. She sank down in a quivering heap on the floor, gasping and helpless, no longer attempting any concealment. And in another moment Arthur had reached her, was bending over her, feeling for her, lifting her.

She gave herself into his hold with a curious sense of fatalism.

CHAPTER XII
THE FIRES OF HELL

She had never before so fully realized the grim, uncompromising strength of the man as at that moment. The day before he had lifted and borne her as though she had been a child. To-night she was a pigmy in the grasp of a giant.

He carried her without words to the kitchen and set her down there in the leathern arm-chair. She had a glimpse of his face as he did so, and it was as it had been earlier in the day—a mask of anger.

He did not speak to her, but went to a cupboard in the wall and took therefrom a bottle and a glass. Weak and trembling from her fall, she watched him pour out a small dose of spirit and add thereto water from a jug on the dresser. Then he came back to her, stooped and put it to her lips. His arm was behind her head as she drank. She felt the strong support of it, the compulsion of the hand that held the glass. But she could not raise her eyes to his. She drank in mute submission.

The dose steadied her, and she sat up. His silence oppressed her like a crushing weight. She felt it must be broken at all costs.

“I am so sorry to have given you this trouble,” she said. “You will think me very strange, but I am afraid I can’t explain anything. I will go back to my room.”

He set down the glass with decision and spoke. “I am sorry to appear unreasonable—or anything else unpleasant. But I am afraid I can’t let you go back to your room at present.”

She turned and gazed at him. “What on earth do you mean?”

His look came to her, and his anger seemed to smite her as with physical force. “My reasons—like yours—won’t bear explanation,” he said.

She gripped the arms of her chair. Had she heard him aright? The thing was unbelievable. “Are you mad?” she said.

He was standing squarely in front of her. He smiled—a smile that turned her cold. “That I can’t tell you. What is madness? I know I have got you here—in my power. And I know I mean to keep you. If that is madness, well—” he lifted his shoulders slightly, the old characteristic movement—“then I am mad.”

She stared at him in growing apprehension. Was the man sober? The doubt flashed through her mind and vanished. He was so deadly calm in his anger. He had locked away his fury as if it were a flaming furnace behind iron doors. But his strength was terrible, unsparing. It menaced her, whichever way she turned.

But her spirit was reviving. It was not her way to submit meekly to the mastery of any man. Very suddenly she rose and faced him. “This is more than I will endure,” she said, speaking briefly and clearly. “Nothing on earth shall keep me in this room against my will!”

She needed to pass him to reach the door into the passage. He stood squarely in her path. She heard him draw a hard breath.

“There is such a thing as brute force,” he said.

She looked him straight in the eyes. “You wouldn’t dare!”

His eyes leaped to flame, holding hers. “Don’t tempt me!” he said, between his teeth.

That checked her for a moment. Something seemed to clutch at her heart. Then pride leaped up full-armed, and she flung it from her. She laughed in his face.

“Do you think you are going to treat me as one of your slaves?” she said contemptuously, and made to pass him.

He flung out an arm before her. His voice came, low and passionate. It was as if the locked doors were opening. She felt the scorching heat behind.

“If you attempt to pass me—you do it at your own risk,” he said.

She stopped. His eyes seemed to be consuming her. In spite of herself, she shrank, averting her own.

“At your own risk,” he said again, and very slowly his arm fell.

There followed a silence that was somehow appalling. She stood as one paralysed. She would have returned to her chair, but lacked the strength. So he was in earnest, this extraordinary man. He actually meant to hold her against her will. And wherefore? She almost challenged him with the question, but something held her back—perhaps it was the consciousness of that intolerable heat of which she had been aware with the utterance of his last words.

She spoke at length. “I don’t understand you. What is the matter?”

He made a harsh sound in his throat; it was as though he choked a laugh. “Do you really wish me to be more explicit? If so, by all means let us drop all subterfuge and come down to bare facts! Why are you trying to creep out of the house by stealth? Answer me!”

It was he then who meant to force a battle. The sudden knowledge gave her back her courage, but she knew it for the courage of desperation.

She lifted her head and faced him. “What is that to you? Does the fact that I have been your guest—your helpless and involuntary guest—entitle you to control my movements or to demand an account of them? I resent your attitude, and I absolutely repudiate your authority. You may keep me here against my will—if you are coward enough. But you will never—however long you wait—induce me to confide my affairs to you. And let me tell you this! When I leave this house, I shall never—no, never—enter it again!”

Fiercely she flung the words, answering challenge with challenge, realizing that it was only by launching herself on the torrent of her anger that she could hope to make any headway against him. For he stood in her path like an opposing force, waiting to hurl her back.

Panting, she ceased to speak. The effort of her defiance was beginning to cost her dear. Almost by instinct she groped for the table and supported herself against it, conscious of a whirling tumult in her brain that she was powerless to still. Too late she realized that the power to which she had entrusted herself had betrayed her.

She saw it in his face—the sudden mockery that gleamed in his eyes. He spoke, and his words cut with a stabbing accuracy straight through the armour of her indignation. “Had I known—what I now know,” he said, “What I might have known from the beginning from the manner of your coming, I certainly would not have entertained you in this house. I have my sisters to think of.”

“Ah!” she said, and no more; for words failed her. The horror of it overwhelmed her utterly and completely. It seemed to her that she had never known the meaning of pain until that moment—pain that bereft her of all normal self-control—pain that made her gasp in sheer agony.

The walls of the room seemed to be closing in upon her. She felt her feet slip away from under her. Desperately she tried to recover her balance, failed, sought to cling to the table but felt her hands could find no hold upon the hard wood.

And then there came the consciousness of his arms surrounding her. He lifted her, he held her to him, and she felt again the awful flame of his look, consuming her.

“And I loved you!” he said. “I—loved you!”

She fought against him breathlessly, feeling that if his lips touched hers life would never be endurable again. But he mastered her without apparent effort. He conquered her slowly, with a fiendish precision that was as iron to her soul. With that dreadful smile upon his face he overcame her spasmodic struggles for freedom. He kissed her, and by his kiss he quelled her resistance; for she felt the fires of hell, and fainted in his hold.

CHAPTER XIII
ESCAPE

Was it a dream—a nightmare of her fevered brain? Was she back again in the tortures of her long illness, with Lucy and Nell whispering behind the screen, wondering how soon the end would come? Had she imagined that dreadful struggle against overwhelming odds? If so, why was she lying here, gazing at the fitful firelight on the oak rafters of the kitchen instead of on her bed upstairs? Or was this too a dream—a strange, illogical fantasy of her diseased imaginings?

She was very tired—that much she knew—sick with long delirium or too great exertion. Her limbs were as lead. And at the back of her mind there hovered that dreadful shadow—was it memory? Was it illusion?—that filled her with a sense of terror indescribable.

But consciousness was returning. Her brain was groping for the truth, and the truth was coming to her gradually, inevitably, inexorably. She remembered her flight down the stairs, her headlong fall in the passage. She remembered the coming of Arthur, the brief interview in the kitchen, his terrible unspoken accusation. She remembered his kiss. . . .

Again the anguish burned her soul; she thrust it from her with a sick shudder. It was more than she could bear.

Then she awoke to the fact that she was lying on the stones before the fire with a man’s coat spread under her. Trembling, she raised herself and found she was alone.

The moonlight filtered in through the bars of the unshuttered window, mingling with the firelight. The lamp that had burned on the dresser was gone. She found the table within her reach and dragged herself up by it, but it was many seconds before she mustered strength to stand alone.

At last with difficulty she made her way to the door that led into the passage, turned the handle and found it locked. Her heart stirred oddly within her like a stricken thing too weak for violent emotion. She crept round the room to the door into the yard. This also was locked and the key gone. The window was barred. She was a prisoner.

She went to the window and stood before it. It looked on to thick laurel bushes that successfully screened the farm-yard from view. Standing thus, there came to her a sudden sound across the stillness of the night, a sound that seemed to galvanize her to a more vivid consciousness of tragedy—the report of a gun. It was followed immediately by another, and then the silence fell again—a silence that could be felt. Tensely, with every nerve stretched, she listened, but though her ears sang with the effort she heard no more. The moonlight and the silence possessed the world.

She began to think of the Stones, of Rotherby and his fruitless vigil, of Oliver. And then—a thing of terror leaping out of the darkness—another thought seized upon her. Oliver’s warning—Rotherby’s danger—the gun-shot she had just heard. Following that, came the memory of her letter, delayed and at length delivered. That brought illumination. The letter had been opened and read. It was from that letter that Arthur had framed his conclusions. Recalling it, she realized that it had been couched in the terms of a lover. But what vile impulse had induced him to open it? And by what means had Oliver become aware of the danger? Her brain was alert now and leaping from point to point with amazing rapidity. Oliver’s knowledge had come from Ruth. Then there was some reason apart from that letter to herself for which Montague Rotherby was accounted an enemy. Remembering Oliver’s very obvious anxiety, she marvelled, seeking for an explanation. Was he aware of Arthur’s passion for herself? Had he really feared that jealousy might drive him to extremes? She found herself shivering again. What had actually happened? Had Rotherby been surprised at the Stones, waiting for her? Had Arthur——

A feeling of physical sickness came upon her so overwhelmingly that she had to sit down to combat it.

Slowly the minutes crawled away, and again through her fainting soul there beat the old, throbbing prayer: “From all evil and mischief, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil, Good Lord deliver us.”

Her lips were still repeating the words mechanically when through the dreadful stillness there came at length a sound—the soft trying of the handle and then the turning of the key.

Frances raised her head. In that night of dreadful happenings she had not expected deliverance. The coming of it was like a dream. A small white figure stood on the threshold, barefooted, with face upraised, listening.

“Are you here?” whispered a childish voice.

“My dear!” Frances said.

The little figure came forward. The moonlight fell upon the upturned, flower-like face. “Please will you take me to sleep with you to-night?” she said.

Strength came back to Frances. The instinct to protect awoke within her, reviving her. She got up and went to the child.

“What made you come to me here, Rosebud?” she said.

“I thought you called me,” Ruth answered. “But perhaps it was a dream. I thought you were frightened, as you were that night at the Stones. You are very cold. Are you frightened?”

“I have been,” Frances said.

Ruth pressed close to her. “Has someone been unkind to you? Is it—is it Uncle Arthur?”

But Frances could not answer her. She was conscious of a weight of tears at her heart to which she dared not give vent.

“Shall we go upstairs?” said Ruth, with soft fingers entwined in hers. “And perhaps you will be able to sleep.”

She yielded to the child’s guidance as she had yielded before without hesitation or misgiving. They went out into the passage. But here a sudden sound made her pause—it was the opening of the door that led into the garden.

Ruth pulled at her hand. “It is only Grandpa. He is always late to bed.”

But Frances drew back sharply. “You run up, darling!” she whispered. “I can’t come yet.”

“Oh, please come!” said little Ruth.

But though she heard a piteous note in the child’s voice, she could not. She freed her hand from Ruth’s clasp. “Run up!” she repeated. “I will come afterwards—if I can.”

What impulse it was that urged her she could not have said, but it was too strong to be resisted. She saw Ruth start obediently but somewhat forlornly up the stairs, and she drew herself back into a deep recess under the staircase and crouched there, not breathing.

Ruth was right. It was the old man who had entered. She discerned him dimly as he came up the passage, moving with the weary gait of age. He paused at the kitchen-door as though he were listening, and she shrank more closely into her hiding-place, dreading discovery. But in a moment he pushed open the door and entered, closing it behind him.

Then the impulse to escape came to her, or perhaps it had been there, dormant against her breathless heart, the whole time. She saw the place as a monstrous prison, stone-walled and terrible, herself a captive guarded on all sides, helpless, beaten by circumstances, broken by Fate. And then this chance—this solitary chance of freedom.

Swiftly upon the closing of that door, she left her retreat, stole along the passage to the door, lifted the latch and was out upon the brick path in the moonlight.

The hollyhocks looked tall and ghostly; the garden lay before her as if asleep. She caught her shawl about her, and fled along the narrow path. She reached the door in the wall, and opening it peered forth. There was no weakness about her now. She was inspired by the strength that is borne of utter need.

She saw no one, and so slipped out on to the lawn by the bed of mignonette in front of the dairy-window. The scent of it rose up in the night like incense. As a thief she crept along in the shadow of the house to the gate that led into the farmyard.

And here Roger greeted her with loud yells of delight from his kennel. She cowered back against the wall, but he continued to cheer and make merry over her unexpected appearance for many seconds, till the conviction that his enthusiasm had failed to elicit any response from her suddenly dawned upon him, and he broke into howls of disappointment, punctuated with urgent whines of encouragement and persuasion.

Discovery seemed inevitable, and the courage of despair entered into Frances. Later she marvelled at herself, but at the time she was scarcely aware of making any effort, either mental or physical. Quite suddenly, as if propelled by a force outside her, she found herself calmly walking forward to the gate. It opened at her touch so easily that it might have been opened for her, and she walked through, hearing it swing creaking behind her between the renewed shouts of jubilation from Roger.

She passed him by, looking neither to right nor left, neither hastening nor lingering, hearing his wails of grief again behind her as she went. She reached the further gate and found it stood open to the lane. Very steadily she passed through and began to walk down the hill between the steep banks. The scent of honeysuckle came to her here, so overpoweringly that she caught her breath with an odd feeling of hurt.

Then—and it seemed to her later that this was the very thing she had been expecting—the one thing for which she had come—there sounded on the hill behind her the whirr of an engine, the slipping of wheels in the mud. Quite calmly still she turned and faced the lights of a small car coming rapidly down upon her. She did not know how it happened, or how near she was to death,—at that moment it would not have interested her to know—but she heard a shout and the sharp grinding of a brake applied to the utmost, followed by the ominous sound of locked wheels that grated to a standstill within a yard of her. Afterwards she remembered thinking that that hot, protesting engine was like a dragon baulked of its prey.

“Who is it?” cried a man’s voice. “What the devil do you want? I’m in a hurry.”

The voice was agitated; it had a desperate sound. This also she noticed, but her own was clear and calm.

“Will you take me with you?” she said. “I am going your way.”

“Frances!” he said in amazement.

“Will you take me?” she repeated.

“Of course I will take you! Get in! Get in!”

She moved along the side of the car. His hand came out to her, the door swung open.

The next moment they were rushing down the lane into a gulf of blackness, and she knew that the prison-walls would menace her no more.