"Lady Bolsover is beckoning to me," said Barbara, and left him.
It was the day after this conversation with Judge Marriott that Martin Fairley came to see her for the second time since she had left Aylingford. To Barbara he seemed strangely out of place in town, the air he assumed of being exactly like other men ill-suited him, and he seemed at a loss without his bow and fiddle. His dress, too, was strictly conventional, and it appeared to affect the manner of his conversation. He was as a man in bonds.
"In London again, Martin!" Barbara exclaimed.
"To see that you are not in trouble, mistress," he answered, and it would have been difficult for a stranger to tell whether he was a lover, or a trusted servant of long standing; there was something of both in his manner.
"It is a long way to come."
"It is lonely at the Abbey," he said.
"Do you think you are safe there, Martin? Would it not be better to go away for a time?"
"Since you are not there, mistress, I lock the door of the tower at nights."
"But Sir John knows you are at the Abbey, and you cannot lock yourself in the tower all day," said Barbara.
"Your uncle is a little afraid of me. He is superstitious, and unless he has someone beside him to lend him courage, he will not molest me. Besides, there have been many festivals where my fiddle was wanted; I have not been much at the Abbey."