CHAPTER IX
THE LIONS’ DEN

“From all evil and mischief, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil” . . .

Someone was saying the words. Frances opened her eyes upon blank darkness, and knew that her own lips had uttered them. She was lying in some sort of shelter, though how she had come thither she had no notion. The rain was beating monotonously upon a roof of corrugated iron. She lay listening to it, feeling helpless as a prisoner clamped to the wall. And then another voice spoke in the darkness, and her heart stood still.

“That’s right. You’re better. Gad, what a fright you gave me! Now do stop raving! You’re only tired and a bit faint.”

“I am not—raving,” she said. “I am only—I am only—” Again without her conscious volition she knew herself to be uttering those words she had heard: “From all evil, and mischief, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil—” She paused a moment, groping as it were for more, then:—“Good Lord, deliver us!” she said, and it was as if her soul were speaking in the darkness.

“Frances!” a voice cried sharply, and she stopped, stopped even her breathing, to listen. “Stop talking that absurd rot! Be sensible! Try to be sensible!”

“I am only—praying,” she said.

“Well, don’t! It isn’t the time for saying prayers. I want you to attend to me. You know what has happened?”

His voice sounded curt and imperious. She peered into the darkness, wishing she could see his face.

“I don’t know,” she made answer wonderingly. “How should I know?”

“I brought you here,” he said. “You fainted.”

“How stupid of me!” she murmured apologetically.

“It was rather.” His voice was grim. “But you’ve got back your senses, and for heaven’s sake keep them! This is just an old cattleshed on the moors and it’s all the shelter we shall get to-night.”

“Oh!” said Frances, and in her voice dismay and relief were strangely mingled. “It was better than the open moor. But yet—but yet——”

He spoke again with a species of humorous ruefulness. “Here we are, and here we’ve got to stay! That damned fog has defeated us. We can’t hope to move before morning.”

“I wish we had a light,” said Frances.

She was gradually getting a grasp of the situation, and though her body felt oddly heavy and her head strangely light, her wits were recovering their customary business-like balance.

“I have got a few matches,” said Montague. “Also a few cigarettes. Afraid it’s useless to attempt a fire. We should only smoke ourselves out—and possibly fire the shed as well. The only comfort we have got is a little hay, and you are lying on it.”

“Where are you?” she said.

“Here!” A hand suddenly touched her, and she started with involuntary shrinking. A great shivering came over her, and for a space she struggled to control her chattering teeth.

“You are cold,” he said.

“Yes,—dreadfully cold. But never mind! It—it’s better than being out in the open, isn’t it? You have no idea where we are?”

“I lost my way,” he said moodily.

She reached out to him a trembling hand, and realized that he was standing propped against the wall beside her. He stooped quickly, grasping her cold fingers.

“Frances, we’ve got to face it. You may as well give in to circumstances. We’re both of us helpless.”

His voice had an odd urgency. It was as if he pleaded with her.

“Oh, I quite realize that,” she said, and she strove to force a practical note into her reply. “We’ve been very unlucky, but what can’t be cured must be endured. We shall come through it somehow.”

She would have removed her hand, despite the physical reluctance to relinquish the warmth of his, but he held it fast.

“You don’t want me to go?” he said.

“Oh no!” she returned briskly. “I am not so selfish and unreasonable as that. We must just make the best of it. We must just—just——”

She broke off. Her teeth were chattering again, and in the effort to check them, she forgot the words she was trying to utter.

She felt him bend lower, and found him kneeling by her side. “It’s no good offering you my coat,” he said. “There’s no warmth in it. Besides, it’s wet through. But I’m not going to let you die of cold for all that—just for the sake of an idiotic convention. Frances—sweetheart—I’m going to hold you in my arms.”

Fear stabbed her—sharp and agonizing. “Oh no!” she said, and drew herself back from him. “Not here! Not now!”

Her hand remained locked in his, but he paused.

“Why not here—and now?” he said.

She gasped her quivering answer. “Because—because—I am not sure if I have done right in—in letting you make love to me. I have not been sure—all day.”

“You don’t love me?” he questioned.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t—possibly—know yet.”

“But you knew yesterday,” he said.

“Ah, yesterday!” The word came almost with a cry. “I was mad yesterday,” she said.

“Why mad?” he reasoned. “My dear, listen to me! Here we are—far away from everywhere—miles away from civilized society. What does it matter—what can it matter—if we throw aside these idiotic conventions just for one night? You know in your heart that it doesn’t matter one jot.”

“It does matter,” she gasped back painfully, still striving vainly to free the hand he held so closely. “It does matter.”

“That means you don’t trust me,” he said.

“I would if I could,” she made desperate answer. “But—but——”

“But—” he echoed grimly, and let her go.

She heard him get up from his knees, and breathed a sigh of thankfulness.

A moment later there came the rasp of a match and a sudden glare in the darkness. Her eyes turned instinctively, though dazzled, to the light. She saw his face, and again instinctively she shrank. For in the eyes that sought her own there burned a fire that seemed to consume her.

He was lighting a cigarette. He looked at her above it, and his look held a question she dared not answer. Again a terrible shivering caught her. The light went out, and she covered her face.

The man spoke no further word. He smoked his cigarette in the darkness till presently it was finished, and then he threw down the glowing end and ground it under his heel.

The silence between them, like the darkness, was such as could be felt. Only the drip, drip of the rain sounded—oddly metallic, like the tolling of a distant bell.

Frances sat huddled against the wall, not moving, not able to move. Her heart was beating with dull, irregular strokes, and her fear had died down. Perhaps she was too exhausted to be actively afraid. A sense of unreality had descended upon her. She had the feeling of one in a dream. Though from time to time violent shivers caught her, yet she was scarcely aware of them. Only now and then the cold seemed to pierce her like a knife that reached her very soul.

And when that happened she always found herself repeating in broken phrases the prayer which no conscious effort brought to her lips. “From all evil and mischief—from sin—from the crafts—and assaults—of the devil—” Sometimes she thought it was the Bishop reciting the words, but she always realized in the end that she was saying them herself, and wondered—and wondered—why she said them.

Her impressions grew blurred at last. She must have dozed, for suddenly—as one returning from a long distance—she started to the sound of her name, and realized Montague once more—Montague whom she had forgotten.

With a great start she awoke to find herself in his arms. She made an instinctive effort to free herself but he held her to his breast, and she was too numbed to resist.

“I can’t stand it,” he said. “I can’t stand by and let you die. Frances, you are mine. Do you hear? You are mine. Whatever comes of it, I’m not going to let you go again!”

She heard the rising passion in his voice. It was like a goad, pricking her to action. For a few seconds she lay passive, waiting as it were for strength. All her life she was to remember the strange calm of those waiting moments. She was as one ship-wrecked and in appalling danger, yet in some fashion aware of rescue drawing near.

And then quite suddenly deliverance came; she knew not how nor stayed to question whence. She realized only the presence of a power beyond her own, uplifting her, succouring her. She put away the arms that sought to hold her, and even as she did so, there came a sound beyond the dripping of the rain—the sound of a child’s voice singing a little tuneless song to itself out in the darkness.

Frances gasped and uttered a cry. “Is that you, child? Is that you?”

The song ceased. A child’s voice made reply. “Is that the pretty lady who gives me flowers?”

They could not see her, but she was close to them. She had entered the shed and stood before them.

“I dreamt I would find you here,” she said. “It was Daniel in the lions’ den at first, then it was you. Why are you in here?”

Frances was on her feet. The man behind her never stirred.

“I have lost my way, little darling,” she said. “How did you get here in the dark?”

“I don’t know the dark,” said the child. “What is dark?”

Frances groping, touched and held a small figure standing before her. “Can you take me back, Rosebud?” she said.

A tiny hand, full of confidence, found and clasped her own. “I will take you to Tetherstones,” said the child.

They went out together, hand in hand, into the dripping darkness.

CHAPTER I
THE STRANGERS

How long she wandered with the child, stumbling through the darkness, Frances never knew. All that she realized and that with a deep thankfulness, was that her guide was quite sure of the way.

They spoke but little during the journey, only now and then the child’s voice, sweet and confident, broke the silence with words of encouragement.

“I’m so glad I found you. . . . We’re nearly there. . . . Granny has a big fire that you can get dry by. . . . And you can come and sleep in my bed. I can sleep with Aunt Maggie. . . . Are you very tired? We shall soon be there.”

And then at last there shone a glare of light in the darkness, and Frances roused herself to speech.

“What is that light?”

“That is Tetherstones,” said the child. “That is home.”

Ah, home! Somehow the words brought the hot tears to Frances’ eyes. She was weak with the long struggle, with the mingled fear and pain and exhaustion of the day. She longed—very desperately she longed—for some safe shelter where she could sink down, and this child spoke to her of home. She could not check her tears.

“Never mind!” said the voice at her side. “Don’t cry! We are just there. Here is the gate!”

Frances fumbled at it, but the child opened it. They went through together and trod the smooth stones that led to the house.

The glare dazzled Frances. She went as she was led, making no effort to guide herself. They came to the porch. She heard the rustle of falling rain upon thatch, and there came to her nostrils the aromatic scent of burning wood. A great quiver went through her. This was Tetherstones—this was home.

The door opened before her. “Come in!” said the child. “We’ll find Granny.”

They entered, and then it seemed to Frances that the light became so intense that she could bear it no longer. She uttered a gasping sound, and fell against the wall. There seemed to be a great many people in front of her, a confusion of voices, and out of the indistinguishable medley she heard a man utter a terrible oath. Then there came a crash, whether within the room or within her brain she knew not. She only knew that she fell, and falling was caught by strong arms that held her up, that lifted her, that sustained her, in all the dreadful tumult in which her senses swam. She turned as one drowning, and clung to that staunch support.

“Bring her to the fire, poor thing!” said a woman’s voice, soft with pity. “Mind how you lift her, Arthur! That’s right, Oliver. You lend a hand!”

Helpless in every limb, she felt herself borne forward, and was aware of a great glow from an open fire. They laid her down before it, and she knew that she was safe. But still, as one who fears to drown, she clung to one of those strong arms that had lifted her.

“Look at that!” said another voice compassionately. “Just like a frightened child! Where did you find her, Ruthie?”

“Up in the old shed near the Stones,” said the child. “I expect she was frightened too. She was lost.”

“Let’s give her some hot milk!” said the motherly voice that had first spoken. “Move a bit, Arthur! I can’t get near her.”

“I can’t move.” It was another voice speaking—a man’s voice, short, decided. “Give me the cup! I’ll see what I can do.”

And then Frances felt the rim of a cup against her lips.

She drank—at first submissively, then hungrily. Her free hand came up to support the cup, and her eyes opened. She looked into a man’s eyes—the hard, steady eyes of Roger’s master.

“Oh!” she said weakly. “It is you!”

“There now! She knows you, does she?” It was not Roger’s master who spoke, but another man beyond her range of vision. “That’s funny, eh, Arthur? You who never look at——”

“Shut up!” said Roger’s master, briefly and rather brutally. “Get out of it, Oliver! Look after the old man!”

He held the cup again to Frances’ lips, and she drank until she drained it. Her eyes remained wide open, fixed upon those other eyes, black-browed and dominant, that had surveyed her so insolently that morning.

A quivering sigh went through her. “I shouldn’t—have come here,” she said.

He handed the cup with an imperious gesture to someone she could not see. “You’re quite safe anyhow,” he said. “There’s nothing to frighten you.”

His voice was deep and very resolute. It had the stern ring of a man accustomed to hard fighting in the arena of life. She wondered a little even in that moment of doubt and uncertainty. Somehow he did not seem to fit his surroundings. He made her think of a gladiator of ancient Rome rather than a farmer in the depths of peaceful Devon.

“I shouldn’t—have come,” she said again, speaking with difficulty. “I am sorry.”

But still her fingers clung to the rough cloth of his coat like the numbed fingers of one who fears to drown.

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for,” he said. “You’re welcome to shelter here as long as you will.” He spoke abruptly over his shoulder. “Speak to her, Mother! She’s scared out of her life.”

“Poor child!” said the woman’s voice. “And no wonder—out there alone in the fog! Who is she, I wonder? Perhaps she will tell us presently.”

The voice was refined. It had a kindly ring, but it sounded tired—too tired for any very poignant feeling. Yet it comforted Frances. It was a homely voice. With a great effort she braced herself for coherent speech.

“I am so sorry,” she said, “to intrude on you like this. I am a visitor here—lodging with Mrs. Trehearn at Brookside. My name is Frances Thorold.”

She heard the child’s voice in the background. “Aunt Maggie, you know the lady. She paints pictures, and she watched you milk the cows. Don’t you remember?”

“Why, yes, of course!” The fresh tones of the rough-haired girl took up the tale. “Of course I remember! We’ll have to get her undressed and to bed, Mother. She’ll die of cold in those wet things.”

They came about her in a crowd, as it seemed to Frances’ confused senses, but Roger’s master kept them back.

“Wait!” he said. “Get a bed ready first! Get hot blankets and brandy! She’s chilled to the bone. Make up the fire, Milly! You, Dolly, light a fire upstairs! Elsie, get the warming-pan! Lucy and Nell, go and draw some water!”

He issued his orders with a parade-like brevity that took instantaneous effect. The crowd melted magically. And still Frances clung to that solid supporting arm as if she could never bear to let go.

Suddenly, it seemed to her that she was alone with him. He bent over her and spoke.

“Tell me! What has frightened you so on the moor?”

His look compelled an answer. Even against her will she would have made it, but a violent shivering fit took her and speech became impossible. He grasped an arm of the old settle on which she lay and dragged it nearer to the fire.

“Don’t be afraid!” he said. “You’re safe enough here. Ruth!”

He raised his voice slightly. The child came and stood beside him—a small child, beautifully made, her sweet face upturned like the face of a flower that seeks the sun. Her eyes were always closed, sealed buds that no sun would ever open.

The man did not look at her. He was closely watching Frances.

“Why did you go to the Stones to-night?” he said.

“I had a dream,” said the child.

“Go on! What did you dream?” The words were peremptory but the voice was gentle. Even in that moment Frances noted the difference of tone.

There was a momentary pause, then the child spoke, her face uplifted like the face of a dreamer.

“I dreamt first about Daniel in the lions’ den, and then it turned into someone up by the Stones—someone who was lost and frightened—and praying for help. So I went to see.”

“Weren’t you afraid?” the man said.

“I? Oh no! There was nothing to frighten me. I knew the way. Besides, God was there,” the child said simply. “It was quite safe. Is the lady better now?”

“She is getting better.” The man reached out and grasped the slender shoulder nearest to him. “Come and hold her hand!” he said.

“May I? Won’t she mind?” The small fingers clasped Frances’ trembling ones. “You are not lost now,” she said softly. “You are found.”

Somehow Frances found her hold transferred. The man rose from his knees. The child nestled down by her side. A sense of peace stole upon her. She knew that she was safe. She closed her eyes to the glare of the fire and lay still. . . .

What happened to her afterwards she never clearly recalled. She was in the hands of strangers who yet in some inexplicable way were friends. They waited upon her, tended her, succoured her with every comfort, till at last the awful shivering passed. She drifted into sleep.

It was a strange sleep of inexplicable happenings—a fevered jumble of impressions, ideas curiously mingled. Daniel in a place of lions—or was it devils?—that was oddly called “The Stones”! Daniel, lost and very frightened, praying for help! And later the coming of an angel to his deliverance!

Yes, she remembered that part of it very clearly. “My God hath sent His angel. . . .” She heard again the voice of a little child singing in the darkness—a child who lived in utter darkness yet knew not the meaning of the word. She called to memory the closed eyes that no sun would ever open, and like a voice within her soul there came to her the words: “You are not lost now. You are found.”

No, she was not lost any longer, but she was ill, terribly ill. There came a time when sleep no longer held her and pain took possession—dreadful intervals when breathing was agony and rest a thing impossible. It stretched out into days of suffering when her very soul seemed to be lacerated with the anguish that racked her body, days when she lay in the cruel grip of a torture such as she had never imagined in all the hardships of her life. Sometimes during those days, it seemed to her that death was very near. She stood on the brink of an abyss unfathomable and felt her soul preparing as it were for that great leap into the unknown. And it had ceased to appall her, as is the merciful way of nature when the body can endure no more. There was nought to fear in Death. It was only pain—earthly pain—that had any power to torment her.

And that power was lessening, hourly, hourly lessening. She was as a prisoner chained to a rock, yet waiting for a sure deliverance. Utter weariness possessed her, a weakness so complete that there were hours together when she would lie, conscious but too exhausted for thought or feeling, and with a dim wonder watch the strangers about her bed.

They were very constantly about her—those strangers. She came to know them by name though she hardly ever spoke to them except to whisper a word of thanks for some service rendered. They would not let her speak from the very outset. They always hushed her into silence whenever she attempted it. And—since speech was very difficult—she came at last to acquiesce dumbly in all that they did.

As the pain lessened and the weakness increased, she grew to lean upon them more and more. There was always someone with her, springing up at her slightest movement to help her. Maggie—the rosy, rough-haired girl who milked the cows—spent two hours each morning and evening after milking-time in ready service upon her, or sitting working by her side. They divided themselves, the six girls, into special watches of four hours each in the twenty-four, each girl serving two hours at a time by day or by night. Frances got to know the time by these watches, for they never varied. Milly, the second girl, used to come to her in the afternoon and in the very early hours of the morning. She liked Milly, who was sensitive and anxious to please, not very strong or very capable, but always full of sympathy and never-failing attention. Elsie, the third girl, was of the boisterous open-air type. She also had a night-watch and she kept it faithfully, though she did a man’s labour on the farm and only rested for the two hours in the middle of the day that she spent in Frances’ room.

“I’m used to broken nights,” she used to say stoutly. “Maggie and I always come in for them in lambing-time.”

Then there was Dolly—a girl of considerable character and decision—Nurse Dolly—Frances used to call her, for she was the one of them all whose touch was skilful and who had any real aptitude for nursing. Lucy and Nell were the youngest—girls of twenty and nineteen. Their watches came consecutively and they used to whisper a great deal in the sick-room when one of them relieved the other. It was mainly by their means that Frances learned how her condition went, and in a vague fashion it amused her to know. But somehow she never felt vitally interested.

When Nell—who always had hay-seed sown in her chestnut hair—told Lucy in hissing undertones that the doctor said she had no strength to make a stand and would probably go very suddenly in the end, Frances, still chained to her rock above the abyss, wondered what either of them would do if that amazing moment came while she was on guard. Lucy would certainly be frightened. She had a shy and gentle way with her. But Nell—Nell was extremely young and full of ideas. She would probably do something highly original before she quitted her post to find Dolly, as, Frances heard, had been arranged among them. Nell was a jolly girl, but she had a schoolboy’s rudeness for all who came her way, and a funny boyish fashion of regarding life that appealed to Frances immensely.

There was someone on the farm, she learned from the girls’ talk, for whom everyone had the profoundest contempt. Lucy and Nell always spoke of him as “the Beast.” But who the Beast was and why he was always thus described did not transpire.

There was also Arthur, Roger’s master, who, she gathered, knew how to assert his authority even over the sometimes mutinous Nell, and commanded her unbounded respect in consequence.

Then there was Oliver—“Oliver Twist” they called him. He was evidently a humorous person and his comic sayings often caused fits of suppressed giggles behind Frances’ screen. Frances used to train her ears to catch the joke, but it always eluded her, the point smothered in laughter, after which Nell would come round to her, looking contrite, and beg her to try and get a little sleep, in the same breath dismissing Lucy brusquely from the room. Yes, Frances liked Nell. She was so delightfully and naïvely human.

But most of all she loved little Ruth of the blind eyes, and Ruth’s granny—the patient, tired woman with the mother’s voice who had pitied her on that first evening. They were curiously alike, these two, in their patience, their gentleness, their serenity. They brought an atmosphere of peace into her room—a sense of rest that none of the sisters possessed. They always came to her together, and Ruth’s granny would speak tenderly in her tired voice, telling her she would be better soon.

She never stayed long, but Frances grew to look for her coming with a certain eagerness, so deep were the knowledge and the understanding in the grave kindly eyes. She had a feeling that this woman, with her white banded hair and sorrow-lined face was many years younger than she seemed. The blind child plainly worshipped her. “My dear Granny” was the fond term by which she always spoke of her, and it was evident to Frances that she filled the place of mother in the child’s heart. She was the petted darling of all the sisters, but this elderly woman who petted her least of all was the beloved one of her heart.

Little Ruth brought her a flower every day, and she would stay on after her granny had gone, curling up beside her on the bed, very still and quiet, sometimes whispering a little, always holding her hand. Frances loved to have her there. The child’s presence was as balm to her spirit. Even in her worst hours it comforted her to feel her near. She was the angel of her deliverance. Whenever that dreadful memory of evil assailed her, she wanted to clasp the little hand in hers, and always it brought her comfort. “My God hath sent His angel. . . .”

CHAPTER II
ROGER’S MASTER

The doctor—whose name was Square—was a bluff old countryman who was accustomed to ride miles over the moor every day on his old white mare, Jessie, in pursuit of his calling. A picturesque figure was Silas Square, immensely big and powerful, gruff and short of speech, but with a heart as soft as a woman’s. He came every morning and evening during the worst period of Frances’ illness, Nurse Dolly always accompanying him, and his strong kindly presence never failed to encourage, even at the time when Nell’s whispered confidences told Frances that he believed the end to be near. He did not talk much in the sick-room. His remedies were old-fashioned and drastic, but he always in some fashion conveyed a sense of confidence to his patients. She generally managed to smile at him when he came.

“You’ve got some pluck,” he said to her once, when he had watched the application of a poultice that caused her acute pain.

And she smiled at him again bravely, though she could not speak in answer, so tightly was her endurance stretched.

And then one day he looked at her with eyes that fairly beamed their congratulation. “You’ve done it!” he said. “You’re through the worst, and, madam, you’re the bravest woman it has ever been my lot to attend!”

She valued these words immensely. They were so spontaneous, and he was very obviously not a man given to flattery.

Thenceforward his visits dropped to once a day, but he always gave her a sympathy that amazed her with its intuition. His kindly concern for her welfare never failed, even when he had finally loosened her chain, and drawn her back from the abyss into safety.

But he would not hear of her being moved. “You’ve had a very stiff time,” he said. “And you’ve got to rest. You’re in excellent hands. The Dermots all love having you. So why worry?”

“Because they don’t know me. Because I am a stranger,” she made answer at last, when her strength had returned sufficiently for her to feel the difficulties of her position. “I can make no return to them for their kindness. I have got to make my living. I have no money.”

“Is kindness ever repaid by money?” he said, with a smile in his shrewd eyes. “You can’t go yet. I won’t sanction it. That heart of yours has got to tick better than it does at present—a long way better—before you think of earning your living again.”

“Then I must go to a hospital,” said Frances desperately, “I can’t go on in this way. I really can’t.”

“You’ll do as you’re told,” said old Dr. Square with a frown. “And you’ll take cream—plenty of it—every day.”

Then he went away, and Frances was left to fume in solitude.

“You’re fretting,” said Nurse Dolly severely when she took her temperature a little later. “That’s very wrong of you and quite unnecessary. Now you will have to take a sedative.”

She did not want the sedative. She was approaching that stage of convalescence when fretting is almost a necessity, and she fought against any palliative. But Dolly would take no refusal, and in the end, with tears of weakness, she had to submit.

“There now!” said Dolly practically, when she had won the day. “What a pity to upset yourself like that! Now don’t cry any more! Just go to sleep!”

She went to sleep, cried herself to sleep like a child that has been slapped, and slept deeply, exhausted, till late into the night. Then she awoke to find with great surprise the child Ruth curled up in the big bed beside her. The fair head was actually on her pillow, the flower-like face close to her own.

“Why, darling, little darling!” whispered Frances.

Ruth’s hands, soft and loving, clasped hers. “I’m not asleep,” she whispered back. “Do you mind me in bed with you?”

“Mind!” said Frances, gathering her close. “As if I could!”

Ruth gave a faint sigh. “I’ve been lying awake to ask you. I came because of a dream I had. Elsie wanted to send me away, but I wouldn’t go. So she put me into bed with you while you were asleep. I’m glad you don’t mind.”

“Go to sleep, my Rosebud!” said Frances very tenderly. “I wouldn’t part with you for all the world.”

She found out later that little Ruth was accustomed to spend her nights promiscuously among her young aunts. She chose her own place of rest, like a wandering scrap of thistledown, disturbing none. They always welcomed her fondly wherever she went, but none ever coerced or persuaded her. She lived her own life; they had no time to spend upon her, and she was curiously independent of them all. She went in and out quite fearlessly, seeing her visions behind those sealed lids, a child of strange spirituality to whom grief was unknown.

She brought her simple comfort to Frances that night, and they slept together in absolute peace. It was the best night that Frances had had throughout her illness.

In the morning she felt better. She and the little girl lay murmuring together in the misty sunshine of the dawn.

“I am going to the Stones to-day,” said Ruth. “I wish you could come.”

“The Stones!” Memory pierced Frances, and she shrank a little involuntarily. But: “Tell me about the Stones!” she said.

“I go and play there,” said Ruth. “Some people are afraid of them. I don’t know why. The fairies play their pipes there, and I lie and listen. And sometimes, when they think I am asleep, the biggest stones talk. But I don’t know what they say,” she added quaintly. “It isn’t our language at all. I daresay the fairies would understand, but they always run away and hide when the stones begin.”

“What are the Stones?” said Frances.

“Oh, just stones, the same as God made when He made the earth. They stand in a big circle. I don’t know why He put them like that, but they have been so ever since the world began. I expect He had a reason,” said the child. “Don’t you?”

“Yes, dear,” said Frances gently. “And you like to go there?”

“Yes,” said Ruth. She hesitated a moment as one to whom a subject is sacred; then: “My mother went to heaven from there,” she said. “So of course God must come there sometimes. I hope He’ll come there some day when I’m there.”

“Wouldn’t you be afraid?” said Frances.

“Afraid of God? Oh no! Why should anyone be afraid of God? He loves us,” said the child.

Frances kissed the upturned face that could not see the sun. “Bless you, little darling!” she said. “Is there anyone who wouldn’t love you, I wonder?”

Ruth left her soon after, and Nurse Dolly came in, brisk and efficient, to prepare her for the day.

“I am glad to see you better,” she said. “But you mustn’t sit up yet—not till you have had three days without a temperature. The doctor says so.”

“I will be very good,” Frances promised. “But do you think I might have my bed pushed near the window? I should so love to look out.”

Dolly considered the request judicially for a moment or two. She was recognized commander-in-chief in the sick-room. “We’ll see about it,” she said. “But it’s a heavy bed to move and has no castors. Still—we’ll see.”

She smiled upon Frances and proceeded with her toilet with her usual ready deftness.

Then she departed, and Frances heard her cheery voice calling for Oliver.

Through the window she heard a man’s voice reply. “Oliver’s gone to put the pigs in the cart for market. What do you want him for?”

“Oh, it’s all right; you’ll do,” said Dolly, still brisk and cheery. “Just come along and help me to move Miss Thorold’s bed! She has a fancy for lying in the sunshine.”

There was no answer to that save a grunt, and a moment later the sound of a pipe being tapped against the side of the step. Frances felt a quick flush rising in her face. She wished with all her heart that she could have restrained Dolly’s well-meaning arrangement as she heard the sound of a man’s tread upon the stairs.

Dolly re-entered, looking well pleased with herself. “Here’s Arthur come to move you,” she said. “He’s strong enough.”

Arthur entered behind her. His great frame with its broad shoulders filled the narrow doorway. He looked straight at her, and she thought his look was oddly lowering, even challenging.

“Come in!” said Dolly.

Frances said nothing. She was tongue-tied.

He came forward into the room, moving with the careless strength of conscious power. He paused at her bedside.

“Are you feeling better?”

She recovered herself with an effort. “I am much better, thank you,” she said, and held out her hand.

He paused an instant as if she had taken him by surprise. Then abruptly he gripped and held the outstretched hand. His face changed magically. He smiled at her, and his smile was good to see. It took years from his appearance, belying the iron-grey of hair that had once been as black as his brows.

“I’m glad of that,” he said. “I hope they are doing all they can for you.”

“They are doing far too much,” Frances said. “I feel so ashamed lying here.”

“Why ashamed?” he said.

She coloured again, painfully, under his eyes. “I have never been in anyone’s debt before,” she said. “And this—this is more than I can ever hope to repay.”

His smile passed, and again his face was hard with the hardness of the fighter. “There is no debt that I can see,” he said. “We are all at the mercy of circumstance. If it comes to that, we owed it to ourselves to do what we could for you.”

It was brusquely spoken, but his look, grim though it was, seemed to her to hold a hint of friendliness. The dog Roger, who had entered behind him, came nosing up to the bedside and she slipped her hand free to fondle him. There was something in this man’s personality that embarrassed her, wherefore she could not have said.

Roger acknowledged her attention with humble effusion, glancing apologetically towards his master the while.

“You are very kind to put it like that,” she said at last, as he stood immovably beside her. “But I can’t bear to be a burden upon anyone—especially—especially——”

“Especially what?” he said.

She answered with difficulty. “Especially people who have to work as hard as you do.”

“People in our walk of life, do you mean?” he said, and she heard the echo of a sneer behind the words.

“Arthur, you are not to make her talk,” said Dolly severely. “She had a temperature yesterday all through over-excitement and fretting, and it throws her back at once. Will you please move the bed and go?”

She spoke with her habitual decision, and Frances was aware of a strong resemblance between the brother and sister as Arthur turned to comply. She herself was near to tears, such was her weakness and distress of mind, and while her bed was being moved across to the window she could not look at either of them. But when the move was at length satisfactorily effected and she could gaze forth over the dewy sunlit fields, she commanded herself sufficiently to utter a low word of thanks.

He came back to her then, and stood beside her. “You are most welcome at Tetherstones,” he said. “Please don’t talk of debts and burdens! They don’t come into the reckoning here.”

His tone was restrained, but it held an unmistakable note of apology. She lifted her eyes in amazement, but he had already turned away. He went out of the room with the free, deliberate swing with which he had entered, and she heard him descending the stairs with Roger pattering behind.

“For goodness’ sake, never take any notice of Arthur!” said sensible Dolly, as she whisked about the room setting it in order. “He always was a bear, and the circumstances he talks about haven’t been such as to have a very taming effect on him.”

Then she knew that by some means Dolly had obtained that semi-apology in order to keep her patient’s temperature normal.

CHAPTER III
THE BEAST

From the day that her bed was moved to the window, Frances began to regain her strength.

It came back to her slowly, with intervals of pain and weariness, when she felt as if she were making no progress at all, but it returned, and her indefatigable nurses gradually relinquished their vigil.

“You can go downstairs and sit in the sun if you want to,” said Dr. Square one morning.

And she thanked him and promised to make the effort. There was a corner of the old-fashioned garden that she could see from her window in which she had often longed to sit, but now that the time had come, all desire for change had left her. She lacked the energy for enthusiasm.

“That’s because you are weak still,” said Dolly. “Never mind! I’ll arrange everything. We’ll get the couch out of the parlour. I can make it very comfortable with some pillows and a rug. It’s nice and cool under the cedar. Don’t you fret now! Just leave it all to me!”

She went off briskly to make her arrangements, and Frances heard her from the garden calling Maggie to come and help her with the couch.

Maggie came, the hair as usual flying all around her sunny face. She was accompanied by the young man they called Oliver, who carried a stable-fork and had evidently just come from the farmyard. Maggie was looking unusually serious, Frances discovered, as the three of them paused at a corner of the old house for discussion.

Presently Maggie’s clear tones reached her. “Don’t you be a silly girl, Dolly! You’ve no right to risk it. You keep her where she is!”

Dolly for once seemed undecided, and Oliver, with a faintly rueful smile on his comical countenance, ranged himself on Maggie’s side.

“Don’t let’s have a shindy for goodness’ sake!” he said. “We’ve kept him quiet till now, but I won’t answer for him much longer. The beast has got to break out some time. I told Arthur so this morning.”

“Oh, but this is nonsense!” declared Dolly. “You can keep him in the farmyard surely. I know I could.”

“Well, you’d better go and do it then, that’s all,” said Maggie. “For he’s on the ramp this morning, and no mistake. I can’t pacify him.”

There followed some words in a lower tone which did not reach Frances at her window, and then the group dispersed, Maggie and Oliver departing in the direction of the farmyard, and Dolly entering the house.

Frances was left alone for some time, and presently coming to the not unwelcome conclusion that she was to remain in her room that day, she began to fall asleep. The day was sultry and very still. She heard vaguely the summer sounds that came through her window. The atmosphere was peaceful beyond words. The occasional lowing of a cow in the meadow beyond the garden where the chattering stream ran, the cooing of the pigeons on the roof of the old barn, and the cry of the wheeling swallows that nestled in the eaves, the singing of a thousand larks above the heather-covered moors, all came to her like a softly-coloured dream. She felt wonderfully soothed and at rest, too tired to speculate as to the meaning of that half-heard discussion below her window, content to drowse the time away as long as Nurse Dolly would permit.

The breeze, laden with the scent of heather, came in upon her like a benediction, playing lightly with her hair, closing her weary lids. She sank more and more deeply into repose.

Then, just when the spell seemed complete, there came a sudden and violent interruption, so startling that she sprang up in a wild alarm, not knowing whence it came.

It began like the bellow of a bull—a terrific sound that sent all the blood to her heart; then she realized that it came from somewhere in the house, not the farmyard, and sat there palpitating, asking herself what it could be.

It went on for many seconds. Sometimes it seemed to her strained senses like the shouting of an angry man, then its utter lack of articulation and intelligibility convinced her that it must be some animal gone mad and broken loose. In the midst of the din she thought she heard a woman’s voice crying frantically for help, and then there came a frightful crash, and all sound ceased.

Frances sank back upon her pillows, completely unnerved. Something terrible had happened. Of that she was certain. But what? But what? Why was the house so deadly quiet after the uproar—that tumult that had made her think of devils fighting together? This mysterious Beast of whom the two girls whispered so freely—was it he who had broken loose, trampling wide destruction through that wonderland of peace? And had he escaped after that final crash, or was he dead? She longed to know, yet dreaded to find out.

Her limbs felt paralysed, and her heart was beating with slow, uneven strokes. A catastrophe of some kind had taken place. Of that she felt certain. Had one of the six sisters been hurt? That wild cry for help—she was sure now that she had heard it—which girl was it who had been in such sore distress? And had the help come in time?

Ah! A sound a last! A step upon the stair! The door opened with quiet decision and Dolly entered. She looked exactly as usual, her face perfectly calm and unclouded.

“I am sorry,” she said, “but I am afraid it is a little too cold for you in the garden to-day. The wind has changed.”

Frances gave a gasp, between relief and incredulity. For the moment words were beyond her.

“Is there anything the matter?” said Dolly.

With an effort Frances made reply. “I thought—something had happened—such a strange noise—it woke me.”

Dolly looked at her with a kindly smile. “Ah, you’ve been dreaming,” she said practically. “People often get nightmares after a bad illness. It’s just weakness, you know.”

She came and felt Frances’ pulse. “Yes, I think you are well enough. I have got a letter for you here. Mrs. Trehearn sent it up this morning.”

She gave an envelope into Frances’ hand, but Frances only stared at her blankly.

“Well?” said Dolly after a moment. “Don’t you want to read it?”

“Thank you,” Frances said, recovering herself.

Dolly smiled again upon her and went to the door. “One of the girls will be in with your cocoa directly. I must go down and help Mother with the bread.”

She went, still unruffled, serenely sure of herself. But Frances, who at first had been almost bewildered into imagining that she had actually dreamed the disturbance below, lay back again with a feeling akin to indignation. Did Dolly really think that she was to be deceived so easily?

She suddenly remembered the letter in her hand, and looked down at it. A man’s writing sprawled across the envelope, and again her heart gave a jerk. What was this?

No word from Montague Rotherby had reached her since little Ruth had led her to Tetherstones on that night of darkness. She had been too ill to think of him till lately, and now in her convalescence she never voluntarily suffered her thoughts to wander in his direction. She had come to regard the whole episode of her acquaintance with him in the light of a curious illusion, such an illusion as she would always remember with a sense of shame. With all her heart she hoped that she would never see him again, for the bare memory of him had become abhorrent to her. Here in the wholesome security of Tetherstones she felt that she had come to her senses, and she would never again be led away by the glitter of that which was not gold.

And so, as she looked at the letter in her hand, there came upon her such a feeling of revolt as had never before possessed her. It was as though she grasped a serpent, and she yearned to destroy it, but dared not.

There came again to her as a sombre echo in her soul the memory of the Bishop’s words: “. . . Until you have endured your hell, and—if God is merciful—begun to work out your own salvation.”

But had she yet endured her hell? Of the hours spent with Rotherby on the moor before the coming of the child her memory was vague. A long wandering, coupled with a growing fear, and at the last an overwhelming sense of evil that she was powerless to combat were the only impressions that remained to her. But with a great vividness did she remember how she had surrendered herself to him the evening before, and burned with shame at the memory. No, she never wanted to see him again, and she longed to destroy his letter unread. The very touch of it was horrible to her.

But something stayed her hand. Something called within her—a mocking, elusive something that taunted her courage. What was there in a letter to frighten her? If she were sure of herself—if she were sure of herself—She tore open the envelope with a gesture of exasperation. Of course she was sure of herself!

“Circe, my beloved!” So the note began, and before her eyes there swam a mist. No man in the whole world had ever called her beloved before! She gripped herself firmly, nerving herself for the ordeal. This was not Love—this was not Love! This was an evil that must be firmly met and cast out. But ah, if it had been Love!

Resolutely she read the letter through. It was written from the inn at Fordestown. “I lost you on that night of fog, but I have found you again, and I have been waiting ever since. They tell me you are better, but I can’t meet you among strangers. When will you come to me? Come soon, Circe beloved! Come soon!

“I am yours, M. R.”

She looked up from the letter. So he was waiting for her still! Somehow she had thought that he would not have deemed it worth his while. A curious dazed feeling possessed her. He was waiting for her still! The ordeal was not over yet. How was she going to face it?

There came a knock at the door—Nell’s boyish knock. She entered, carrying a tray with cocoa and cream upon it.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “I hope you haven’t been wanting it very badly.”

Frances crumpled the letter in her hand. She looked at the girl and saw that Nell’s usually rosy face was pale.

“Is anything the matter, Nell?” she said.

Nell’s chin quivered at the question. “Oh, there’s been a frightful row,” she said. “But I mustn’t tell you anything about it. Arthur would be furious if he knew.”

“You needn’t be afraid of that,” said Frances. “He won’t know.”

“Thank you,” the girl said, and dried her eyes. “But I can’t tell you all the same. It wouldn’t be fair. You don’t know the beast’s ways, and it’s a good thing you don’t. Please don’t ask me anything—or I shall say too much! I know I shall.”

“My dear, I don’t want you to tell me anything against your will,” Frances said kindly.

“No, it isn’t that,” Nell said. “But I don’t want you to think you ought to go. We’ve been so glad to have you. We’ve loved looking after you. But there’s never any peace—and never will be so long as Arthur—” She broke off abruptly. “Oh, I’d better go. I’m making a muddle of things, and there’ll be a worse row if he finds out.”

She left the room precipitately, and Frances was again alone. She closed her eyes to think. Something in Nell’s confused words had given her a shock.

So they wanted her gone! That was what it amounted to. She had outstayed her welcome, and she must go. The thought of all the kindness they had showered upon her sent a pang to her heart. How good they had been to the unwelcome stranger within their gates! And all the while there had been no peace at Tetherstones because of the black-browed master who wanted her gone.

No peace at Tetherstones, and how nobly they had striven to keep it from her! Ah well, she knew now—she knew now!

Her hand clenched unconsciously, and she became aware of the letter she held. A great wave of feeling went through her. Her eyes were suddenly full of tears. Ah, if it had been Love that called her! If it had been Love!

CHAPTER IV
REBELS

Two days later, Frances went out into the garden. She leaned upon Dolly’s arm, for she was very weak, and Lucy came behind, carrying rugs and cushions. They settled her on a couch under the great cedar-tree that spread its branches over the lawn, and there little Ruth came and nestled beside her while the two elder girls went away.

“When you are well enough,” said Ruth, her sweet face upturned to the chequered sunlight, “I would like you to come to the Stones with me.”

“When I am well enough, sweetheart,” said Frances, “as soon as I can walk, that is, I am going away.”

“Right away?” said the child.

“Yes, darling. Right away. I have stayed too long, much too long, as it is.”

“I would like you always here,” said Ruth.

Frances pressed her to her side in silence.

It was a perfect summer morning. From across the field that bordered the old garden there came the babble of the stream. There was a line of sunflowers along the red-brick wall, and below them the blue of delphiniums that brought to mind the Bishop’s garden. The warm scent of sweet-peas filled the air. Some distance away, Nell’s sunbonnet was visible, dipping among the green. She and Lucy were gathering peas, and their careless chatter came to Frances where she lay. The peace of the place rested upon it like a benediction.

“You will come with me to the Stones before you go, won’t you?” said Ruth.

It was hard to refuse her. “Perhaps, darling,” she said gently.

There came the tread of a horse’s hoofs on the cobbles of the yard. “That is Uncle Arthur,” said Ruth, and freed herself from Frances’ encircling arm.

“Are you going?” Frances asked.

“I shall come back,” she said.

With perfect confidence she left the shade of the cedar-tree and moved through the hot sunshine that bathed the lawn. Frances watched her wonderingly. She did not run, but she went quickly over the grass, and never faltered when her feet reached the gravel-path. Unerringly the little blue-frocked figure found the gate that led into the yard, and disappeared beyond the wall. Frances breathed a sigh. The place seemed empty without her. Some minutes passed, and the child did not return. She began to grow drowsy, and was actually on the verge of slumber when a rustling sound close at hand suddenly recalled her. She came to herself with a sharp start.

The rustling ceased immediately, but she had an acute sense of being watched that sent a strange uneasiness through her. She made an effort to raise herself.

Her heart was throbbing fast and hard, and she was conscious of intense weakness, but she managed to drag herself into a sitting position and to turn her head in the direction whence the sound had come.

At first she perceived nothing, for a screen of nut-trees that bounded an orchard beyond the garden effectually concealed everything else from sight. Then, as though drawn by some magnetism, her eyes became riveted. She saw two other eyes peering at her through the leaves, and vaguely discerned a figure crouched and motionless, a few yards from her.

The blood rushed to her heart in a great wave of apprehension. There was something ominous in its utter stillness. She felt like a defenceless traveller who has made his couch all unwittingly on the threshold of a wild beast’s lair.

She lay very still, not moving, not daring to breathe.

Suddenly from across the lawn she heard the deep tones of a man’s voice. She turned her eyes swiftly in the direction whence it came and, with a throb of mingled relief and embarrassment, saw Arthur Dermot crossing the grass towards her, little Ruth holding his hand. She glanced back swiftly again into the green of the nut-trees, but the space whence those eyes had glared so fixedly at her was empty. Without a sound the watcher had gone.

An acute wave of reaction went through her—an overwhelming sense of helplessness. She sank back upon her cushions, weakly gasping. The sunlight swam before her eyes.

“Miss Thorold!” said a voice.

She looked up with an effort, seeing him through a mist. “I am quite all right. Just—just a passing faintness! It is nothing—really nothing!”

She heard herself uttering the words, but she could not lift her voice above a whisper. At the touch of a quiet hand laid upon her own, she knew she started violently.

“It has been too much for you, coming out here,” he said.

“I am quite all right,” she assured him again tremulously. “I am only sorry—to have given—so much trouble.”

“That’s not the way to look at it,” he said.

She felt his fingers close up on her wrist and wondered a little, for there was something very quieting in his touch.

“You mustn’t attempt too much at a time,” he said. “Square told me so only two days ago. You are not wanting to leave us yet, are you?”

The direct question, coming from him, took her by surprise. Her vision was steadying, but an odd flutter of agitation still possessed her. She did not know how to answer him for the moment; then the memory that he wanted her gone came upon her, and she braced herself to reply.

“I must go—yes. I have been here much too long as it is.”

His fingers left her wrist, but he still stood above her motionless, looking straight down at her, yet not as if he watched her, but rather as if he debated something with himself.

“May I ask a question?” he said suddenly.

She felt herself colour. There was something unexpected about this man. She wondered why he embarrassed her so. She tried to smile in answer to his words though his expression was grave to sombreness. “If it isn’t too hard a one,” she said.

“It’s only this,” he said, in his quiet, rather ponderous fashion. “Have you anywhere to go to—if you leave us?”

“Oh, that!” said Frances, and knew she had betrayed herself before she could formulate her reply. “Why, yes,—of course I have.”

“Why ‘of course’?” he said.

She hesitated. “Because—well, every woman has somewhere to go to. I have—a brother.”

“A brother?” he said.

She found herself explaining further as if under compulsion. “Yes, in the North,—a business man. He would take me in.”

“Have you any intention of asking him to?” Somehow the question stung her. It was so direct, so unerring, like the flick of a whip-lash. She dropped her eyes before his look. “I can do so,” she said with pride.

“Do you intend to?” he insisted.

She did not answer. Before that straight regard she could not lie.

He waited a moment or two, then to her surprise he sat down upon the grass by her side. “Ruth,” he said to the blind child standing silently beside him. “Go to the house and find my tobacco-pouch! Maggie is in the dairy. She will know where it is.”

Ruth went with instant obedience, and Arthur Dermot took off his cap and laid it on the grass.

“Now, Miss Thorold,” he said, “I am going to ask you another question.”

He spoke with the authority of a man not accustomed to be gainsaid, and again that odd quiver as of apprehension went through her. She lay in silence, waiting.

When he spoke again, she knew he was looking at her, but she did not meet his look.

“I want to know,” he said, “what it was that scared you so up at the Stones the night you came to us.”

“Ah!” She made a quick movement of protest. “I can’t tell you that,” she said.

“You don’t want to tell me,” he said.

“I can’t tell you,” she said again.

He was silent for a space, but she was conscious of his eyes still upon her, and she had an urgent desire to escape from their scrutiny. They were so intent, so unsparing, so full of resolution.

“Someone was up there with you,” he said suddenly.

She clenched her hands to check the swift leap of her heart. “I don’t think you have any right—to press me like this,” she said, her voice very low.

“No right whatever,” he agreed, and in his quiet rejoinder she caught an unexpected note of relief. “I knew you had had a fright, and the Stones have a bad name hereabouts. I wondered what bogey had frightened you. But apparently it wasn’t a bogey this time.”

He smiled a little with the words and she felt the tension relax. She lifted her eyes and met a gleam of friendliness in his.

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t a bogey.”

“Perhaps you don’t believe in them,” said Arthur Dermot.

She hesitated, remembering the eyes that had glared at her through the nut-trees, and then wondering within herself if they had been a dream. He went on with scarcely a pause.

“Whether you do or not, I shouldn’t go to the Stones again in the dark if I were you. It’s not a healthy spot.”

“But the child goes!” she said in surprise.

“The child!” He lifted his brows. “The child is different,” he said briefly. “The child goes everywhere.”

His tone did not invite comment. She wondered and held her peace.

After a moment he went on, his jaw set in the fighting fashion she had come to associate with him. “All this is beside the point, though you’ve satisfied me in one particular. Now, Miss Thorold, to return to the charge! Why must you go from here before you are fit?”

“I think you know why,” she said.

“But if you have no one to go to—” he said.

“I am going to work,” said Frances, with decision.

“What is your work?” he asked.

She answered him without reserve, for his manner had undergone a change. “I am a typist. I have been secretary to the Bishop of Burminster.”

“Burminster!” he repeated the name sharply. “What is his name?”

“Dr. Rotherby.”

“Ah!” She saw his face twist suddenly, as if at a spasm of pain. “That man!” He ground the words between his teeth.

“Yes, that man! Do you know him?”

She asked the question with a certain hesitation, but he answered it immediately. “I knew him once—before he came to Burminster. What is he like now? Did he treat you decently?”

“He never treats anyone decently,” said Frances.

“You quarrelled with him?” He looked at her sharply.

“Yes. I quarrelled with him,” she answered with simplicity. “I think he is the hardest man I have ever met.”

Arthur Dermot was silent. He picked up his cap and began to turn it in his hands, moodily meditative.

“Well,” Frances said, after a moment, “that is a closed chapter now. I am looking out for another post.”

“They are not very easy to find, are they?” he said.

The indomitable courage that Montague Rotherby had admired in her sounded in her reply. “Of course they are not easy. That’s just the best of life. We’ve got to work for everything worth having.”