"Not till daybreak. Remember, if you feel frightened, that I'm within earshot."
Then, before she could protest or detain him for an explanation, he turned from her and went out into the darkness.
CHAPTER V. Maria Stands on Christopher's Ground
A broad yellow beam sliding under the door brought Maria into sudden consciousness, and rising hastily from the straw, where her figure had shaped an almost perfect outline, she crossed the dusky floor smelling of trodden grain and went out into the early sunshine, which slanted over the gray fields. A man trundling a wheelbarrow from the market garden, and a milkmaid crossing the lawn with a bucket of fresh milk, were the only moving figures in the landscape, and after a single hurried glance about her she followed the straight road to the house and entered the rear door, which Malindy had unlocked.
Meeting Fletcher a little later at breakfast, she found, to her surprise, that he accepted her presence without question and made absolutely no allusion to the heated conversation of the evening before. He looked sullen and dirty, as if he had slept all night in his clothes, and he responded to Maria's few good-humoured remarks with a single abrupt nod over his coffee-cup. As she watched him a feeling of pity for his loneliness moved her heart, and when he rose hastily at last and strode out into the hall she followed him and spoke gently while he paused to take down his hat from one of the old antlers near the door.
"If I could only be of some use to you, grandfather," she said; "are you sure there is nothing I can do?"
With his hand still outstretched, he hesitated an instant and stood looking down upon her, his heavy features wrinkling into a grin.
"I've nothing against you as a woman," he responded, "but when you set up and begin to charge like a judge, I'll be hanged if I can stand you."
"Then I won't charge any more. I only want to help you and to do what is best. If you would but let me make myself of some account."
He laughed not unkindly, and flecked with his stubby forefinger at some crumbs which had lodged in the folds of his cravat.