Mrs. Keith looked with cold hard eyes at the little girl.
"Explain yourself more clearly and don't talk so fast. When did you first meet him?"
"He belongs to Miss Triggs. He's her brother, and Mrs. Triggs was angry when I called him wicked. I don't think he's really wicked, Aunt Diana; he wants to give up drinking beer, but he can't. You see, he was going to have a wife once, but she wouldn't marry him, and then he—he went to the devil!"
Harebell's voice sank to an awed whisper.
"I don't know quite what that means but he won't be with the devil any longer if he gets through the Door. I told him about it, and then he went away from me—and I gave him a spell to say about beer—I made it up myself. Would you like to hear it?"
"I cannot have you talking to such men. You must have nothing more to do with him."
"Oh, please let me, Aunt Diana—I'm so very very interested in him! Please don't say I'm not to speak to him. Why, we've thought of a cottage, and a wife, and some work—and if he never touches beer again you'll let me have him for a friend—"
Mrs. Keith's lips compressed themselves together very tightly.
"I never argue. You are never to speak to him again."
Harebell had up to this moment been such a quiet sedate little girl in her aunt's presence that Mrs. Keith hardly realized how deeply things touched her.