"Don't you know who I am, Mr. Daunt? But I remember you when I was a child."
Daunt peered through the dusk.
"You have the advantage of me, Madam," he said, stiffly. "Kindly give me your name."
"Miss Blanchflower—from Maumsey Abbey!" said a young, conscious voice. "I used to come here with my grandmother, Lady Blanchflower. I have been intending to come and pay you a visit for a long time—to have a look at the old house again. And just now I was passing the foot of your hill in a motor; something went wrong with the car, and while they were mending it, I ran up. But it's getting dark so quick, one can hardly see anything!"
Daunt's attitude showed no relaxation. Indeed, quick recollections assailed him of certain reports in the local papers, now some ten days old. Miss Blanchflower indeed! She was a brazen one—after all done and said.
"Pleased to see you, Miss, if you'll kindly get an order from Sir Wilfrid. But I have strict instructions from Sir Wilfrid not to admit anyone—not anyone whatsoever—to the gardens or the house, without his order."
"I should have thought, Mr. Daunt, that only applied to strangers." The tones shewed annoyance. "My father, Sir Robert Blanchflower, was an old friend of Sir Wilfrid's."
"Can't help it, Miss," said Daunt, not without the secret zest of the Radical putting down his "betters." "There are queer people about. I can't let no one in without an order."
As he spoke, a gate slammed on his left, and Daunt, with the feeling of one beset, turned in wrath to see who might be this new intruder. Since the house had been closed to visitors, and a notice to the effect had been posted in the village, scarcely a soul had penetrated through its enclosing woods, except Miss Amberley, who came to teach Daunts crippled child. And now in one evening here were three assaults upon its privacy!
But as to the third he was soon reassured.