She was rather taken aback. “Who are you?” she said suddenly.

“If you will tell me your name I will tell you mine.”

“I am Miss Isoline Ridge way, and my uncle is Mr. Lewis, the Vicar of Crishowell.”

“I don’t know him,” said Rhys. “I am a stranger.”

“You have not told me who you are,” said the girl, after a silence in which he was preparing his answer.

“I’m called Kent—Robert Kent,” he replied, giving the name of a boy who had been at school with him.

“That sounds very romantic,” observed Isoline; “like an outlaw or a murderer in a tale.”

Rhys winced in the darkness.

“I must go now,” she said, rising. “You will come with me?”

“That I will—as far as I can. Tell me, am I never to see you any more?”