He wished to ingratiate himself, and proceeded to show off his one accomplishment. With infinite difficulty and patience the Miss Walcotes had taught him to "give a paw"; so now, on this first evening, William followed the children about solemnly offering one paw and then the other; a performance which was greeted with acclamation.

When the children went to the bathroom he somehow got shut outside. So he lay down and breathed heavily through the bottom of the door and varied this by thin, high-pitched yelps—which were really squeals, and very extraordinary as proceeding from such a large and heavy dog.

"William wants to come in," Tony said. He still always accompanied his sister to the bath.

Meg was seized with an inspiration. "I know why," she exclaimed. "He expects to see little Fay in the big bath."

Fay looked from Meg to her brother and from her brother to Meg.

Another dismal squeal from under the door.

"Does he tluly espect it?" she asked anxiously.

"I think so," Meg said gravely, "and we can't let him in if you're going to be washed in the little bath; he'd be so disappointed."

The little bath stood ready on its stand. Fay turned her back upon it and went and looked over the edge of the big bath. It was a very big bath, white and beautiful, with innumerable silvered handles that produced sprays and showers and waves and all sorts of wonders. An extravagance of Anthony's.

"Will William come in, too?" she asked.

"No; he'd make such a mess; but he'd love to see you. We'll all bathe William some other time."

More squeals from outside, varied by dolorous snores.

"Let him in," said little Fay. "I'll show him me."

Quick as thought Meg lifted her in, opened the door to the delighted William, who promptly stood on his hind legs, with his front paws on the bath, and looked over the edge at little Fay.

"See me swim," she exclaimed proudly, sitting down in the water, while William, with his tongue hanging out and a fond smile of admiration on his foolish countenance, tried to lick the plump pink shoulders presented to his view. "This is a muts nicer baff than the nasty little one. I can't think what you bringed it for, deah Med."

"Deah Med" and Tony nodded gaily to one another.

Hannah had made William sleep in the scullery, which he detested. She put his basket there and his blanket, and he was warm enough, but creature comforts matter little to the right kind of dog. It's human fellowship he craves. That night she came to fetch him at bed-time, and he refused point-blank to go. He put his head on Meg's knee and gazed at her with beseeching eyes that said as plainly as possible: "Don't banish me—where you go I go—don't break my heart and send me away into the cold."

Perhaps the cigarette smoke that hung about Meg gave him confidence. His master smelt like that. And William went to bed with his master.

"D'you think he might sleep in the dressing-room?" Meg asked. "I know how young dogs hate to be alone at night. Put his basket there, Hannah—I'll let him out and see to him, and you could get him first thing in the morning."

Hannah gave a sniff of disapproval, but she was always very careful to do whatever Meg asked her at once and ungrudgingly. It was partly an expression of her extreme disapproval of the uniform. But Meg thought it was prompted entirely by Hannah's fine feeling, and loved her dearly in consequence.

Nearly all the bedrooms at Wren's End had dressing-rooms. Tony slept in Jan's, with the door between left open. Fay's little cot was drawn up close to Meg's bed. William and his basket occupied the dressing-room, and here, also, the door was left open.

While Meg undressed, William was quite still and quiet, but when she knelt down to say her prayers he was overcome with curiosity, and, getting out of his basket, lurched over to her to see what she was about. Could she be crying that she covered her face? William couldn't bear people to cry.

He thrust his head under her elbow. She put her arm round his neck and he sat perfectly still.

"Pray for your master, William," Meg whispered.

"I like to look at it," said Tony.

"Oh, London may be very gay, but it's nothing to the countryside," sang Meg.

"What nelse?" inquired little Fay, who could never be content with a mere snatch of song.

"Oh, there's heaps and heaps of nelse," Jan answered. "Come along, chicks, we'll go and see everything. This is home, you know, where dear Mummy wanted you to be."

It was their first day at Wren's End, and the weather was kind. They were all four in the drive, looking back at the comfortable stone-fronted Georgian house. The sun was shining, a cheerful April sun that had little warmth in it but much tender light; and this showed how all around the hedges were getting green; that buds were bursting from brown twigs, as if the kind spring had covered the bare trees with a thin green veil; and that all sorts of green spears were thrusting up in the garden beds.

Down the drive they all four ran, accompanied by a joyfully galumphing William, who was in such good spirits that he occasionally gave vent to a solemn deep-chested bark.

When they came to the squat grey lodge, there was Mrs. Earley standing in her doorway to welcome them. Mrs. Earley was Earley's mother, and Earley was gardener and general factotum at Wren's End. Mrs. Earley looked after the chickens, and when she had exchanged the news with Jan, and rather tearfully admired "poor Mrs. Tancred's little 'uns," she escorted them all to the orchard to see the cocks and hens and chickens. Then they visited the stable, where Placid, the pony, was sole occupant. In former years Placid had been kept for the girls to drive in the governess-cart and to pull the heavy lawn-mower over the lawns. And Hannah had been wont to drive him into Amesberrow every Sunday, that she might attend the Presbyterian church there. She put him up at a livery-stable near her church and always paid for him herself. Anthony Ross usually had hired a motor for the summer months. Now they would depend entirely on Placid and a couple of bicycles for getting about. All round the walled garden did they go, and Meg played horses with the children up and down the broad paths while Jan discussed vegetables with Earley. And last of all they went to the back door to ask Hannah for milk and scones, for the keen, fresh air had made them all hungry.

Refreshed and very crumby, they were starting out again when Hannah laid a detaining hand on Jan's arm: "Could you speak a minute, Miss Jan?"

The children and Meg gone, Hannah led the way into the kitchen with an air of great mystery; but she did not shut the doors, as Anne Chitt was busy upstairs.

"What is it, Hannah?" Jan asked nervously, for she saw that this summons portended something serious.

"It's about Miss Morton I want to speak, Miss Jan. I was in hopes she'd never wear they play-acting claes down here ..." (when Hannah was deeply earnest she always became very Scotch), "but it seems I hoped in vain. And what am I to say to ither folk when they ask me about her?"

"What is there to say, Hannah, except that she is my dear friend, and by her own wish is acting as nurse to my sister's children?"

"I ken that; I'm no sayin' a word against that; but first of all she goes and crops her hair—fine hair she had too, though an awfu-like colour—and not content with flying in the face of Providence that way, she must needs dress like a servant. And no a weiss-like servant, either, but one o' they besoms ye see on the hoardings in London wha act in plays. Haven't I seen the pictures mysel'? 'The Quaker Gerrl,' or some such buddy."

"Oh, I assure you, Hannah, Miss Morton in no way resembles those ladies, and I can't see that it's any business of ours what she wears. You know that she certainly does what she has undertaken to do in the best way possible."

"I'm no saying a word against her wi' the children, and there never was a young lady who gave less trouble, save in the way o' tobacco ash, and was more ready to help—but yon haverals is very difficult to explain. You may understand, Miss Jan. I may say I understand—though I don't—but who's to make the like o' that Anne Chitt understand? Only this morning she keeps on at me wi' her questions like the clapper o' a bell. 'Is she a servant? If she's no, why does she wear servants' claes? Why does she have hair like a boy? Has she had a fever or something wrong wi' her heid? Is she one of they suffragette buddies and been in prison?'—till I was fair deeved and bade the lassie hold her tongue. But so it will be wherever Miss Morton goes in they fantastic claes. Now, Miss Jan, tell me the honest truth—did you ever see a self-respecting, respectable servant in the like o' yon? Does she look like any servant you've ever heard tell of out of a stage-play?"

"Not a bit, Hannah; she looks exactly like herself, and therefore not in the least like any other person. Don't you worry. Miss Morton requires no explanation. All we must do is to see that she doesn't overwork herself."

"Then ye'll no speak to her, Miss Jan?"

"Not I, Hannah. Why should I dictate to her as to what she wears? She doesn't dictate to me."

This was not strictly true, for Meg was most interfering in the matter of Jan's clothes. Hannah shook her head. "I thocht it my duty to speak, Miss Jan, and I'll say no more. But it's sheer defiance o' her Maker to crop her heid and to clothe herself in whim-whams, when she could be dressed like a lady; and I'm real vexed she should make such an object of herself when she might just be quite unnoticeable, sae wee and shelpit as she is."

"I'm afraid," said Jan, "that Miss Morton will never be quite unnoticeable, whatever she may wear. But don't let us talk about it any more. You understand, don't you, Hannah?"

When Jan's voice took that tone Hannah knew that further argument was unavailing.

Jan turned to go, and saw Tony waiting for her in the open doorway. Neither of them had either heard or seen him come.

Quite silently he took her hand and did not speak till they were well away from the house. Meg and little Fay were nowhere in sight. Jan wondered how much he had heard.

"She's a very proud cook, isn't she?" he said presently.

"She's a very old servant," Jan explained, "who has known me all my life."

"If," said Tony, as though after deep thought, "she gets very chubbelsome, you send for me. Then I will go to her and say 'Jāŏ!'" Tony followed this up by some fluent Hindustani which, had Jan but known it, seriously reflected on the character of Hannah's female ancestry. "I'll say 'Jāŏ!'," he went on. "I'll say it several times very loud, and point to the door. Then she'll roll up her bedding, and you'll give her money and her chits, and she will depart."

They had reached a seat. On this Jan sank, for the vision of Tony pointing majestically down the drive while little Hannah staggered into the distance under a rolled-up mattress, was too much for her.

"But I don't want her to go," she gasped. "I love her dearly."

"She should not speak to you like that; she scolded you," he said firmly. "She is a servant ... She is a servant?" he added doubtfully.

"How much did you hear of what she said? Did you understand?"

"I came back directly to fetch you, I thought she sounded cross. Mummy was afraid when people were cross; she liked me to be with her. I thought you would like me to be with you. If she was very rude I could beat her. I beat the boy—not Peter's boy, our boy—he was rude to Mummy. He did not dare to touch me because I am a sahib ... I will beat Hannah if you like."

Tony stood in front of Jan, very earnest, with an exceedingly pink nose, for the wind was keen. He had never before said so much at one time.

"Shall I go back and beat her?" he asked again.

"Certainly not," Jan cried, clutching Tony lest he should fly off there and then. "We don't do such things here at home. Nobody is beaten, ever. I'm sure Peter never beats his servants."

"No," Tony allowed. "A big sahib must not strike a servant, but I can, and I do if they are rude. She was rude about Meg."

"She didn't mean to be rude."

"She found fault with her clothes and her hair. She is a very proud and impudent cook."

"Tony dear, you really don't understand. She wasn't a bit rude. She was afraid other people might mistake Meg for a servant. She was all for Meg—truly she was."

"She scolded you," he rejoined obstinately.

"Not really, Tony; she didn't mean to scold."

Tony looked very hard at Jan.

In silence they stared at one another for quite a minute. Jan got up off the seat.

"Let's go and find the others," she said.

"She is a very proud cook," Tony remarked once more.

Jan sighed.

That night while she was getting ready for bed Tony woke up. His cot was placed so that he could see into Jan's room, and the door between was always left open. She was standing before the dressing-table, taking down her hair.

Unlike the bedrooms at the flat, the room was not cold though both the windows were open. Wren's End was never cold, though always fresh, for one of Anthony's earliest improvements had been a boiler-house and central heating, with radiators set under the windows, so that they could always stand open.

Jan had not put on her dressing-gown, and her night-dress had rather short, loose sleeves that fell back from her arms as she raised them.

He watched the white arm wielding the brush with great pleasure; he decided he liked to look at it.

"Auntie Jan!"

She turned and flung her hair back from her face in a great silver cloud.

"You awake, sonny! Did I make a noise?"

"No, I just woke. Auntie Jan, will Daddie ever come here?"

"I expect so."

"Well, listen. If he does, he shan't take your things, your pretty twinkly things. I won't let him."

Jan stood as if turned to stone.

"He took Mummy's. I saw him; I couldn't stop him, I was so little. But she said—she said it twice before she went away from that last bungalow—she said: 'Take care of Auntie Jan, Tony; don't let Daddie take her things.' So I won't."

Tony was sitting up. His room was all in darkness; two candles were lit on Jan's dressing-table. He could see her, but she couldn't see him.

She came to him, stooped over him, and laid her cheek against his so that they were both veiled with her hair. "Darling, I don't think poor Daddie would want to take my things. You must try not to think hardly of Daddie."

Tony parted the veil of hair with a gentle hand so that they could both see the candles.

"You don't know my Daddie ... much," he said, "do you?"

Jan shuddered.

"I saw him," he went on in his queer little unemotional voice. "I saw him take all her pretty twinkly things; and her silver boxes. I'm glad I sleep here."

"Did she mind much?" Jan whispered.

"I don't know. She didn't see him take them, only me. She hadn't come to bed. She never said nothing to me—only about you."

"I don't expect," Jan made a great effort to speak naturally, "that Daddie would care about my things ... It's different, you see."

"I'm glad I sleep here," Tony repeated, "and there's William only just across the passage."

CHAPTER XVI
"THE BLUDGEONINGS OF CHANCE"

THEY had been at Wren's End nearly three weeks, and sometimes Jan wondered if she appeared to Tony as unlike her own conception of herself as Tony's of his father was unlike what she had pictured him.

She knew Hugo Tancred to be dishonest, shifty, and wholly devoid of a sense of honour, but she had up till quite lately always thought of him as possessing a lazy sort of good-nature.

Tony was changing this view.

He was not yet at all talkative, but every now and then when he was alone with her he became frank and communicative, as reserved people often will when suddenly they let themselves go. And his very simplicity gave force to his revelations.

During their last year together in India it was evident that downright antagonism had existed between Hugo Tancred and his little son. Tony had weighed his father and found him wanting; and it was clear that he had tried to insert his small personality as a buffer between his father and mother.

Jan talked constantly to the children of their mother. Her portraits, Anthony's paintings and sketches, were all over the house, in every variety of happy pose. One of the best was hung at the foot of Tony's cot. The gentle blue eyes seemed to follow him in wistful benediction, and alone in bed at night he often thought of her, and of his home in India. It was, then, quite natural that he should talk of them to this Auntie Jan who had evidently loved his mother well; and from Tony Jan learned a good deal more about her brother-in-law than she had ever heard from his wife.

Tony loved to potter about with his aunt in the garden. She worked really hard, for there was much to do, and he tried his best to assist, often being a very great hindrance; but she never sent him away, for she desired above all things to gain his confidence.

One day after a hard half-hour's weeding, when Tony had wasted much time by pulling up several sorts of the wrong thing, Jan felt her temper getting edgy, so they sat down to rest upon one of the many convenient seats to be found at Wren's End. Anthony hated a garden where you couldn't sit comfortably and smoke, wheresoever the prospect was pleasing.

Tony sat down too, looking almost rosy after his labours.

He didn't sit close and cuddly, as little Fay would have done, but right at the other end of the seat, where he could stare at her. Every day was bringing Tony more surely to the conclusion that "he liked to look at" his aunt.

"You like Meg, don't you?" he said.

"No," Jan shook her head. "I don't like her. I love her; which is quite a different thing."

"Do you like people and love them?"

"I like some people—a great many people—then there are others, not so many, that I love—you're one of them."

"Is Fay?"

"Certainly, dear little Fay."

"And Peter?"

For a moment Jan hesitated. With heightened colour she met Tony's grave, searching eyes. Above everything she desired to be always true and sincere with him, that he might, as on that first night in England, feel that he "believed" her. "I have every reason to love Mr. Ledgard," she said slowly: "he was so wonderfully kind to all of us." She was determined to be loyal to Peter with poor Fay's children. Jan hated ingratitude. To have said she only liked Peter must have given Tony the impression that she was both forgetful and ungrateful. She would not risk that even though she might risk misunderstanding of another kind if he ever repeated her words to anybody else.

Her heart beat rather faster than was comfortable, and she was thankful that she and Tony were alone.

"Who do you like?" he asked.

"Nearly everybody; the people in the village, our good neighbours ... Can't you see the difference yourself? Now, you love your dear Mummy and you like ... say, William——"

"No," Tony said firmly, "I love William. I don't think," he went on, "I like people ... much. Either I love them like you said, or I don't care about them at all ... or I hate them."

"That," said Jan, "is a mistake. It's no use to hate people."

"But if you feel like it ... I hate people if they cheat me."

"But who on earth would cheat you? What do you mean?"

"Once," said Tony, and by the monotonous, detached tone of his voice Jan knew he was going to talk about his father, "my Daddie asked me if I'd like to see smoke come out of his ears ... an' he said: 'Put your hand here on me and watch very careful.'" Tony pointed to Jan's chest. "I put my hand there and I watched and watched an' he hurt me with the end of his cigar. There's the mark!" He held out a grubby little hand, back uppermost, for Jan's inspection, and there, sure enough, was the little round white scar.

"And what did you do?" she asked.

"I bit him."

"Oh, Tony, how dreadful!"

"I shouldn't of minded so much if he'd really done it—the smoke out of his ears, I mean; but not one teeniest little puff came. I watched so careful ... He cheated me."

Jan said nothing. What could she say? Hot anger burned in her heart against Hugo. She could have bitten him herself.

"Peter was there," Tony went on, "and Peter said it served him right."

"Yes," said Jan, grasping at this straw, "but what did Peter say to you?"

"He said, 'Sahibs don't cry and sahibs don't bite,' and if I was a sahib I mustn't do it, so I don't. I don't bite people often."

"I should hope not; besides, you know, sometimes quite good-natured people will do things in fun, never thinking it will hurt."

Tony gazed gloomily at Jan. "He cheated me," he repeated. "He said he would make it come out of his ears, and it didn't. He didn't like me—that's why."

"I don't think you ought to say that, and be so unforgiving. I expect Daddie forgot all about your biting him directly, and yet you remember what he did after this long time."

Poor Jan did try so hard to be fair.

"I wasn't afraid of him," Tony went on, as though he hadn't heard, "not really. Mummy was. She was drefully afraid. He said he'd whip me because I was so surly, and she was afraid he would ... I knew he wouldn't, not unless he could do it some cheaty way, and you can't whip people that way. But it frightened Mummy. She used to send me away when he came...."

Tony paused and knitted his brows, then suddenly he smiled. "But I always came back very quick, because I knew she wanted me, and I liked to look at him. He liked Fay, I suppose he liked to look at her, so do I. Nobody wants to look at me ... much ... except Mummy."

"I do," Jan said hastily. "I like to look at you just every bit as much as I like to look at Fay. I think you care rather too much what people look like, Tony."

"It does matter a lot," Tony said obstinately.

"Other things matter much more. Courage and kindness and truth and honesty. Look at Mr. Ledgard—he's not what you'd call a beautiful person, and yet I'm sure we all like to look at him."

"Sometimes you say Peter, and sometimes Mr. Ledgard. Why?"

Again Jan's heart gave that queer, uncomfortable jump. She certainly always thought of him as Peter. Quite unconsciously she occasionally spoke of him as Peter. Meg had observed this, but, unlike Tony, made no remark.

"Why?" Tony repeated.

"I suppose," Jan mumbled feebly, "it's because I hear the rest of you do it. I've no sort of right to."

"Auntie Jan," Tony said earnestly. "What is a devil?"

"I haven't the remotest idea, Tony," Jan replied, with the utmost sincerity.

"It isn't anything very nice, is it, or nice to look at?"

"It might be," said Jan, with Scottish caution.

"Daddie used to call me a surly little devil—when I used to come back because Mummy was frightened ... she was always frightened when he talked about money, and he did it a lot ... When he saw me, he would say: 'Wot you doing here, you surly little devil—listening, eh?'" Tony's youthful voice took on such a snarl that Jan positively jumped, and put out her hand to stop him. "'I'll give you somefin to listen to....'"

"Tony, Tony, couldn't you try to forget all that?"

Tony shook his head. "No! I shall never forget it, because, you see, it's all mixed up with Mummy so, and you said"—here Tony held up an accusing small finger at Jan—"you said I was never to forget her, not the least little bit."

"I know I did," Jan owned, and fell to pondering what was best to be done about these memories. Absently she dug her hoe into the ground, making ruts in the gravel, while Tony watched her solemnly.

"Then why," he went on, "do you not want me to remember Daddie?"

"Because," said Jan, "everything you seem to remember sounds so unkind."

"Well, I can't help that," Tony answered.

Jan arose from the seat. "If we sit idling here all afternoon," she remarked severely, "we shall never get that border weeded for Earley."

The afternoon post came in at four, and when Jan went in there were several letters for her on the hall-table, spread out by Hannah in a neat row, one above the other. It was Saturday, and the Indian mail was in. There was one from Peter, but it was another letter that Jan seized first, turning it over and looking at the post-mark, which was remarkably clear. She knew the excellent handwriting well, though she had seen it comparatively seldom.

It was Hugo Tancred's; and the post-mark was Port Said. She opened it with hands that trembled, and it said:

Still as a statue sat Jan. From the garden came the cheerful chirruping of birds and constant, eager questioning of Earley by the children. Earley's slow Gloucestershire speech rumbled on in muffled obbligato to the higher, carrying, little voices.

The whirr of a sewing-machine came from the morning-room, now the day-nursery, where Meg was busy with frocks for little Fay.

In a distant pantry somebody was clinking teacups. Jan shivered, though the air from the open window was only fresh, not cold. At that moment she knew exactly how an animal feels when caught in a trap. Hugo Tancred's letter was the trap, and she was in it. With the exception of the lie about other letters—Jan was perfectly sure he had written no other letters—and the stereotyped phrases about shattered lamps and the wife who was "no more," the letter was one long menace—scarcely veiled. That sentence, "in so far as you make it possible for me to do so, I will fall in with your wishes regarding them in every way," simply meant that if Jan was to keep the children she must let Hugo make ducks and drakes of her money; and if he took her money, how could she do what she ought for the children?

And he was at Port Said; only a week's journey.

Why had she left that money in Bombay? Why had she not listened to Peter? Sometimes she had thought that Peter held rather a cynically low view of his fellow-creatures—some of his fellow-creatures. Surely no one could be all bad? Jan had hoped great things of adversity for Hugo Tancred. Peter indulged in no such pleasant illusions, and said so. "Schoolgirl sentimentality" Meg had called it, and so it was. "No doubt it will be possible to find some cheap preparatory school for Tony."

Would he try to steal Tony?

From the charitable mood that hopeth all things Jan suddenly veered to a belief in all things evil of her brother-in-law. At that moment she felt him capable of murdering the child and throwing his little body down a well, as they do in India.

Again she shivered.

What was she to do?

So helpless, so unprotected; so absolutely at his mercy because she loved the children. "Never let him blackmail you," Peter had said. "Stand up to him always, and he'll probably crumple up."

Suddenly, as though someone had opened shutters in a pitch-dark room, letting in the blessed light, Jan remembered there was also a letter from Peter.

She crossed the hall to get it, though her legs shook under her and her knees were as water.

She felt she couldn't get back to the window-seat, so she sat on the edge of the gate-table and opened the letter.

A very short letter, only one side of a page.

CHAPTER XVII
"THOUGH AN HOST SHOULD ENCAMP AGAINST ME"

THE flap of the gate-leg table creaked under Jan's weight, but she dug her heels into the rug and balanced, for she felt incapable of moving.

Peter was coming home; if the worst came to the worst he would deal with Hugo, and a respite would be gained. But Peter would go out to India again and Hugo would not. The whole miserable business would be repeated—and how could she continue to worry Peter with her affairs? What claim had she upon him? As though she were some stranger seeing it for the first time, Jan looked round the square, comfortable hall. She saw it with new eyes sharpened by apprehension; yet everything was solidly the same.

The floor with its draught-board pattern of large, square, black and white stones; the old dark chairs; the high bookcases at each side of the hearth; the wide staircase with its spacious, windowed turning and shallow steps, so easily traversed by little feet; the whole steeped in that atmosphere of friendly comfort that kind old houses get and keep.

Such a good place to be young in.

Such a happy place, so safe and sheltered and pleasant.

Outside the window a wren was calling to his mate with a note that sounded just like a faint kiss; such a tender little song.

The swing door was opened noisily and Anne Chitt appeared bearing the nursery tea-tray, deposited it in the nursery, opened the front door, thumped on the gong and vanished again. Meg came out from the nursery with two pairs of small slippers in her hand: "Where are my children? I left little Fay with Earley while I finished the overalls; he's a most efficient under-nurse—I suppose you left Tony with him too. Such a lot of letters for you. Did you get your mail? I heard from both the boys. Ah, sensible Earley's taking them round to the back door. Where's William's duster? Hannah does make such a fuss about paw-marks." And Meg, too, vanished through the swing door.

Slowly Jan dragged herself off the table, gathered up her unread letters, and went into the nursery. She felt as though she were dreadfully asleep and couldn't awake to realise the wholesome everyday world around her.

Vaguely she stared round the room, the most charming room in Wren's End. Panelled in wood long since painted white, with two delightful rounded corner cupboards, it gave straight on to the wrens' sunk lawn from a big French window with steps, an anachronism added by Miss Janet Ross. Five years ago Anthony had brought a beautiful iron gate from Venice that fitted into the archway, cut through the yew hedge and leading to the drive. Jan had given this room to the children because in summer they could spend the whole day in its green-walled garden, quite safe and shut in from every possibility of mischief. A sun-dial was in the centre, and in one corner a fat stone cherub upheld a bath for the birds. Daffodils were in bloom on the banks, and one small single tulip of brilliant red. Jan went out and stood on the top step.

Long immunity from menace of any kind had made all sorts of little birds extraordinarily bold and friendly. Even the usually shy and furtive golden-crested wrens fussed in and out under the yew hedge quite regardless of Jan.

Through an open window overhead came the sound of cheerful high voices, and little Fay started to sing at the top of her strong treble:

"Is that what I've been doing?" thought Jan. "Weaving coats of many colours out of happy dreams?" Were she and the children the mice, she wondered.

Marauding cats had been kept away from Wren's End for over a hundred years. "The little wrens that build" had been safe enough. But what of these poor human nestlings?

"Shall I come and help loo to wind up loo thleds?" sang little Fay. "Oh, no, Missis Pussy, you'd bite off our heads!" And Tony joined in with a shout: "Oh, no, Missis Pussy, you'd bite off our heads."

The voices died away, the children were coming downstairs.

Jan drank three cups of tea and crumbled one piece of bread and butter on her plate. The rest of the party were hungry and full of adventures. Before she joined Earley little Fay had been to the village with Meg to buy tape, and she had a great deal to say about this expedition. Meg saw that something was troubling Jan, and wondered if Mr. Ledgard had given her fresh news of Hugo. But Meg never asked questions or worried people. She chattered to the children, and immediately after tea carried them off for the usual washing of hands.

Jan went out into the hall; the door was open and the sunny spring evening called to her. When she was miserable she always wanted to walk, and she walked now; swiftly down the drive she went and out along the road till she came to the church, which stood at the end of the village nearest to Wren's End.

She turned into the churchyard, and up the broad pathway between the graves to the west door.

Near the door was a square headstone marking the grave of Charles Considine Smith; and she paused beside it to read once more the somewhat strange inscription.

Under his name and age, cut deep in the moss-grown stone, were the words: "Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear."

Often before Jan had wondered what could have caused Tranquil, his wife, to choose so strenuous an epitaph. Tranquil, who had never stirred twenty miles from the place where she was born; whose very name, so far as they could gather, exemplified her life.

What secret menace had threatened this "staid person," this prosperous shipper of sherry who, apparently, had spent the evening of his life in observing the habits of wrens.

Why should his gentle wife have thus commemorated his fighting spirit?

Be the reason what it might, Jan felt vaguely comforted. There was triumph as well as trust in the words. Whatever it was that had threatened him, he had stood up to it. His wife knew this and was proud.

Jan tried the heavy oak door and it yielded, and from the soft mildness of the spring evening, so full of happy sounds of innocent life, she passed into the grey and sacred silence of the church.

It was cold in the beautiful old fourteenth-century church, with that pervading smell of badly-burning wood that is so often found in country churches till all attempt at heating ceases for the summer. But nothing could mar the nobility of its austerely lovely architecture; the indefinable, exquisite grace that soothes and penetrates.

She went and knelt in the Wren's End pew where Charles Considine Smith's vast prayer-book still stood on the book-board. And even as in the Bombay Cathedral she had prayed that strength might be given to her to walk in the Way, so now she prayed for courage and a quiet, steadfast mind.

Her head was bowed and buried in her hands: "My heart shall not fear," she whispered; but she knew that it did fear, and fear grievously.

The tense silence was broken by an odd, fitful, pattering sound; but Jan, absorbed in her petition for the courage she could not feel, heard nothing.

Something clumsy, warm, and panting pushed against her, and she uncovered her face and looked down upon William trying to thrust his head under her arm and join in her devotions.

And William became a misty blur, for her eyes filled with tears; he looked so anxious and foolish and kind with his tongue hanging out and his absurd, puzzled expression.

He was puzzled. Part of the usual ritual had been omitted.

She ought, by all known precedents, to have put her arm round his neck and have admonished him to "pray for his Master." But she did nothing of the kind, only patted him, with no sort of invitation to join in her orisons.

William was sure something was wrong somewhere.

Then Jan saw Tony sitting at the far end of the seat, hatless, coatless, in his indoor strap shoes; and he was regarding her with grave, understanding eyes.

In a moment she was back in the present and vividly alive to the fact that here was chilly, delicate Tony out after tea, without a coat and sitting in an ice-cold church.

She rose from her knees, much to William's satisfaction, who did not care for religious services in which he might not take an active part. He trotted out of the pew and Jan followed him, stooping to kiss Tony as she passed.

"It's too cold for you here, dear," she whispered; "let us come out."

She held out her hand and Tony took it, and together they passed down the aisle and into the warmer air outside.

"How did you know I was here?" she asked, as they hurried into the road.

"I saw you going down the drive from the bathroom window, and so I runned after you, and William came too."

"But what made you come after me?"

"Because I thought you looked frightened, and I didn't like it; you looked like Mummy did sometimes."

No one who has seen fear stamped upon a woman's face ever forgets it. Tony had watched his aunt all tea-time, and this quite new expression troubled him. Mummy had always seemed to want him when she looked like that; perhaps Auntie Jan would want him too. The moment his hands were dried he had rushed past Meg and down the stairs with William in his wake. Meg had not tried to stop him, for she, too, realised that something worried Jan, and she knew that already there had arisen an almost unconscious entente between these two. But she had no idea that he had gone out of doors. She dressed little Fay and took her out to the garden, thinking that Tony and Jan were probably in the nursery, and she was careful not to disturb them.

"Are you cold, Tony?" Jan asked anxiously, walking so fast that Tony had almost to run to keep up with her.

"No, not very; it's a nice coldness rather, don't you think?"

"Tony, will you tell me—when Daddie was angry with you, were you never frightened?"

Tony pulled at her hand to make her go more slowly. "Yes," he said, "I used to feel frightened inside, but I wouldn't let him know it, and then—it was funny—but quite sunn'ly I wasn't frightened any more. You try it."

"You mean," Jan asked earnestly, "that if you don't let anyone else know you are frightened, you cease to be frightened?"

"Something like that," Tony said; "it just happens."

CHAPTER XVIII
MEG AND CAPTAIN MIDDLETON

MEG had worked hard and faithfully ever since Ayah left. Very soon after she took over the children entirely she discovered that, however naughty and tiresome they were in many respects, they were quick-witted and easily interested. And she decided there and then that to keep them good she must keep them well amused, and it acted like a charm.

She had the somewhat rare power of surrounding quite ordinary everyday proceedings with a halo of romance, so that the children's day developed into a series of entrancing adventures.

With Meg, enthusiastic make-believe had never wholly given place to common sense. Throughout the long, hard days of her childhood and early apprenticeship to a rather unkindly world she had pretended joyously, and invented for herself all sorts of imaginary pleasures to take the place of those tangible ones denied to her. She had kept the width and wistfulness of the child's horizon with a good deal of the child's finality and love of detail; so that she was as responsive to the drama of common things as the children themselves.

Thus it came about that the daily donning of the uniform was in very truth symbolic and inspiring; and once the muslin cap was adjusted, she felt herself magically surrounded by the atmosphere most conducive to the production of the Perfect Nurse.

For Tony and little Fay getting up and going to bed resolved themselves into feats of delicious dexterity that custom could not stale. The underneaths of tables were caves and dungeons, chairs became chariots at will, and every night little Fay waved a diminutive pocket-handkerchief to Tony from the deck of an ocean-going P. and O.

The daily walks, especially since they came to Wren's End, were filled with hopeful possibilities. And to hunt for eggs with Mrs. Earley, or gather vegetables with her son, partook of the nature of a high and solemn quest. It was here Meg showed real genius. She drew all the household into her net of interest. The children poked their busy fingers into everybody's pies, and even stern Hannah was compelled, quite unconsciously, to contribute her share in the opulent happiness of their little world.

But it took it out of Meg.

For weeks she had been on the alert to prevent storms and tempests. Now that the children's barometer seemed at "set fair" she suddenly felt very tired.

Jan had been watching her, and on that particular Sunday, had she been able to catch Meg before she got up, Jan would have dressed the children and kept her in bed. But Meg was too nimble for her, washed and dressed her charges, and appeared at breakfast looking a "wispy wraith."

She had slept badly; a habit formed in her under-nourished youth which she found hard to break; and she had, in consequence, been sitting up in bed at five in the morning to make buttonholes in garden smocks for Tony.

This would have enraged Jan had she but known it. But Meg, frank and honest as the day in most things, was, at times, curiously secretive; and so far had entirely eluded Jan's vigilance. By the time Anne Chitt came with the awakening tea there wasn't a vestige of smock, needles, or cotton to be seen, and so far lynx-eyed little Fay had never awoke in time to catch her at it.

This morning, however, Jan exerted her authority. She slung the hammock between two trees in the sunniest part of the garden; she wrapped Meg in her own fur coat, which was far too big for Meg; covered her with a particularly soft, warm rug, gave her a book, a sun-umbrella, and her cigarette case; and forbade her to move till lunch-time unless it rained.

Then she took the two children and William into Squire Walcote's woods for the morning and Meg fell fast asleep.

Warm with the double glow that came from being wrapped in Jan's coat because Jan loved her; lulled by the songs of birds and a soft, shy wind that ruffled the short hair about her forehead, little Meg was supremely happy. To be tired, to be made to rest, to be kissed and tucked in and sternly commanded to stay where she was till she was fetched—all this, so commonplace to cherished, cared-for folk, seemed quite wonderful to Meg, and she snuggled down among the cushions in blissful content.

Meanwhile, on that same Sunday morning, Captain Middleton, at Amber Guiting Manor, was trying to screw his courage up to the announcement that he did not intend to accompany his aunt and uncle to church. Lady Mary Walcote was his mother's only sister, and Mrs. Walcote, wife of Jan's tenant, was one of his father's, so that he spoke quite truly when he told Meg he had "stacks of relations down at Amber Guiting."

Colonel Walcote was much better off than his elder brother, the squire of Amber Guiting, for he benefited by the Middleton money.

Miles Middleton's father was the originator of "Middleton's Made Starch," which was used everywhere and was supposed to be superior to all other starches. Why "Made" scoffers could never understand, for it required precisely the same treatment as other starches. But the British Public believed in it, the British Public also bought it in large quantities, and George Middleton, son of Mutton-Pie Middleton, a well-to-do confectioner in Doncaster, became an exceedingly rich man. He did not marry till he was forty, and then he married "family," for Lady Agnes Keills, younger daughter of Lord Glencarse, had a long pedigree and no dower at all. She was a good wife to him, gentle, upright, and always affectionate. She adored their only child, Miles, and died quite suddenly from heart failure, just after that cheerful youth had joined at Woolwich. George Middleton died some three years later, leaving his money absolutely to his son, who came of age at twenty-five. And, so far, Miles had justified his father's faith in him, for he had never done anything very foolish, and a certain strain of Yorkshire shrewdness prevented him from committing any wild extravagance.

He was generous, kindly, and keen on his profession, and he had reached the age of thirty-two without ever having felt any overwhelming desire to marry; though it was pretty well known that considerable efforts to marry him suitably had been made by both mothers and daughters.

The beautiful and level-headed young ladies of musical comedy had failed to land this considerable fish, angled they never so skilfully; though he frankly enjoyed their amusing society and was quite liberal, though not lavish, in the way of presents.

Young women of his own rank were pleasant to him, their mothers cordial, and no difficulty was ever put in the way of his enjoying their society. But he was not very susceptible. Deep in his heart, in some dim, unacknowledged corner, there lay a humble, homely desire that he might feel a great deal more strongly than he had felt yet, when the time and the woman came to him.

Never, until Meg smiled at him when he offered to carry little Fay up that long staircase, had the thought of a girl thoroughly obsessed him; and it is possible that even after their meetings in Kensington Gardens her image might gradually have faded from his mind, had it not occurred to Mrs. Trent to interfere.

He had seen a good deal of the Trents while hunting with the Pytchley two winters ago. Lotty was a fearless rider and what men called "a real good sort." At one time it had sometimes crossed Captain Middleton's mind that Lotty wouldn't make half a bad wife for a Horse Gunner, but somehow it had always stopped at the idea, and when he didn't see Lotty he never thought about her at all.

Now that he no longer saw Meg he thought about her all day and far into the night. His sensations were so new, so disturbing and unpleasant, his life was so disorganised and upset, that he asked himself in varying degrees of ever-accumulating irritation: "What the deuce was the matter?"

Then Mrs. Trent asked him to luncheon.

She was staying with her daughters at the Kensington Palace Hotel, and they had a suite of rooms. Lotty and her sister flew away before coffee was served, as they were going to a matinée, and Miles was left tête-à-tête with Mrs. Trent.

She was most motherly and kind.

Just as he was wondering whether he might now decently take leave of her, she said: "Captain Middleton, I'm going to take a great liberty and venture to say something to you that perhaps you will resent ... but I feel I must do it because your mother was such a dear friend of mine."

This was a piece of information for Miles, who knew perfectly well that Lady Agnes Middleton's acquaintance with Mrs. Trent had been of the slightest. However, he bowed and looked expectant.

"I saw you the other day walking with Miss Morton in Kensington Gardens; apparently she is now in charge of somebody's children. May I ask if you have known her long?"

Mrs. Trent looked searchingly at Miles, and there was an inflection on the "long" that he felt was in some way insulting to Meg, and he stiffened all over.

"Before I answer that question, Mrs. Trent, may I ask why you should want to know?"

"My dear boy, I see perfectly well that it must seem impertinent curiosity on my part. But I assure you my motive for asking is quite justifiable. Will you try not to feel irritated and believe that what I am doing, I am doing for the best?"

"I have not known Miss Morton very long; why?"

"Do you know the people she is living with at present?"

Again that curious inflection on the "present."

"Oh, yes, and so do my people; they think all the world of her."

"Of Miss Morton?" Shocked astonishment was in Mrs. Trent's voice.

"I was not speaking of Miss Morton just then, but of the lady she is with. I've no doubt, though," said Miles stoutly, "they'd think just the same of Miss Morton if they knew her. They may know her, too; it's just a chance we've never discussed her."

"It is very difficult and painful for me to say what I have got to say ... but if Miss Morton is in charge of the children of a friend of your family, I think you ought to know she is not a suitable person to be anything of the kind."

"I say!" Miles exclaimed, "that's a pretty stiff thing to say about any girl; a dangerous thing to say; especially about one who seems to need to earn her own living."

"I know it is; I hate to say it ... but it seemed to me the other day—I hope I was mistaken—that you were rather ... attracted, and knowing what I do I felt I must speak, must warn you."

Miles got up. He seemed to tower above the table and dwarf the whole room. "I'd rather not hear any more, Mrs. Trent, please. It seems too beastly mean somehow for me to sit here and listen to scandal about a poor little unprotected girl who works hard and faithfully—mind you, I've seen her with those children, and she's perfectly wonderful. Don't you see yourself how I can't do it?"

Mrs. Trent sat on where she was and smiled at Miles, slowly shaking her head. "Sit down, my dear boy. Your feelings do you credit; but we mustn't be sentimental, and facts are facts. I have every reason to know what I'm talking about, for some years ago Miss Morton was in my service."

Miles did not sit down. He stood where he was, glowering down at Mrs. Trent.

"That doesn't brand her, does it?" he asked.

Still smiling maternally at him, Mrs. Trent continued: "She left my service when she ran away with Mr. Walter Brooke—you know him, I think? Disgraceful though it was, I must say this of him, that he never made any concealment of the fact that he was a married man. She did it with her eyes open."

"If," Miles growled, "all this happened 'some years ago' she must have been about twelve at the time, and Brooke ought to have been hounded out of society long ago."

"I needn't say that we have cut him ever since. She was, I believe, about nineteen at the time. She did not remain with him, but you can understand that, naturally, I don't want you to get entangled with a girl of that sort."

Miles picked up his hat and stick. "I wish you hadn't told me," he groaned. "I don't think a bit less highly of her, but you've made me feel such a low-down brute, I can't bear it. Good-bye—I've no doubt you did it for the best ... but——" And Miles fairly ran from the room.

Mrs. Trent drummed with her fingers on the table and looked thoughtful. "It was quite time somebody interfered," she reflected. And then she remembered with annoyance that she had not found out the name of Meg's employer.

Miles strode through Kensington Gore and past Knightsbridge, when he turned down Sloane Street till he came to a fencing school he frequented. Here he went in and had a strenuous half-hour with the instructor, but nothing served to restore his peace of mind. He was angry and hurt and horribly worried. If it was true, if the whole miserable story was true, then he knew that something had been taken from him. Something he had cherished in that dim, secret corner of his heart. Its truth or untruth did not affect his feeling for Meg. But if it were true, then he had irretrievably lost something intangible, yet precious. Young men like Miles never mention ideals, but that's not to say that in some very hidden place they don't exist, like buried treasure.

All the shrewd Yorkshire strain in him shouted that he must set this doubt at rest. That whatever was to be his action in the future he must know and face the truth. All the delicacy, the fine feeling, the sensitiveness he got from his mother, made him loathe any investigation of the kind, and his racial instincts battled together and made him very miserable indeed.

When he left the fencing school, he turned into Hyde Park. The Row was beginning to fill, and suddenly he came upon his second cousin, Lady Penelope Pottinger, sitting all alone on a green chair with another empty one beside it. Miles dropped into the empty chair. He liked Lady Pen. She was always downright and sometimes very amusing. Moreover she took an intelligent interest in dogs, and knew Amber Guiting and its inhabitants. So Miles dexterously led the conversation round to Jan and Wren's End.

Lady Pen was looking very beautiful that afternoon. She wore a broad-leaved hat which did not wholly conceal her glorious hair. Hair the same colour as certain short feathery rings that framed a pale, pathetic little face that haunted him.

"Talking of Amber Guiting," he said, "did you ever come across a Miss Morton down there? A friend of Miss Ross."

Lady Pen turned and looked hard at him. "Oh dear, yes; she's rather a pal of mine. I knew her long before I met her at the Ross's. Why, I knew her when she was companion at the Trents, poor little devil."

"Did she have a bad time there? Weren't they nice to her?"

"At first they were nice enough, but afterwards it was rotten. Clever little thing she is, but poor as a rat. What do you know about her?"

Again Lady Pen looked hard at Miles. She was wondering whether Meg had ever given away the reason for that short hair of hers.

"Oh, I've met her just casually, you know, with Miss Ross. She strikes me as a ... rather unusual sort of girl."

"Ever mention me?"

"No, never that I can remember. I haven't seen much of her, you know."

"Well, my son, the less you see of her the better, for her, I should say. She's a clever, industrious, good little thing, but she's not in your row. After all, these workin' girls have their feelin's."

"I don't fancy Miss Morton is at all the susceptible idiot you appear to think her. It's other people's feelings I should be afraid of, not hers."

"Oh, I grant you she's attractive enough to some folks. Artists, for instance, rave over her. At least, Anthony Ross did. Queer chap, that; would never paint me. Now can you understand any man in his senses refusin' to paint me?"

"It seems odd, certainly."

"He painted her, for nothin' of course, over an' over again ... just because he liked doin' it. Odd chap he was, but very takin'. You couldn't dislike him, even when he refused to paint you. Awful swank though, wasn't it?"

"Were his pictures of Miss Morton—sold?"

"Some were, I believe; but Janet Ross has got a lot of 'em down at Wren's End. She always puts away most of her father's paintin's when she lets the house. But you take my advice, Miley, my son: you keep clear of that little girl."

This was on Thursday, and, of course, after two warnings in one afternoon, Miles went down to Amber Guiting on Saturday night.

"Aunt Mary, it's such a lovely morning, should you mind very much if I go for a stroll in the woods—or slack about in the fresh air, instead of going to church?"

At the word "stroll" he had seen an interested expression lighten up Squire Walcote's face, and the last thing he wanted was his uncle's society for the whole morning.

"I don't feel up to much exercise," Miles went on, trying to look exhausted and failing egregiously. "I've had rather a hard week in town. I'll give the vicar a turn in the evening, I will truly."

Lady Mary smiled indulgently on this large young man, who certainly looked far from delicate. But only a hard-hearted woman could have pointed this out at such a moment, and where her nephew was concerned Lady Mary's heart was all kindly affection. So she let him off church.

Miles carried out a pile of books to a seat in the garden and appeared to be settled down to a studious morning. He waved a languid hand to his aunt and uncle as they started for church, and the moment they were out of sight laid down his book and clasped his hands behind his head.

The vicar of Amber Guiting was a family man and merciful. The school children all creaked and pattered out of church after morning prayer, and any other small people in the congregation were encouraged to do likewise, the well-filled vicarage pew setting the example. Therefore, Miles reckoned, that even supposing Miss Morton took the little boy to church (he couldn't conceive of anyone having the temerity to escort little Fay thither), they would come out in about three-quarters of an hour after the bell stopped. But he had no intention of waiting for that. The moment the bell ceased he—unaccompanied by any of the dogs grouped about him at that moment—was going to investigate the Wren's End garden. He knew every corner of it, and he intended to unearth Meg and the children if they were to be found.

Besides, he ardently desired to see William.

William was a lawful pretext. No one could see anything odd in his calling at Wren's End to see William. It was a perfectly natural thing to do.

Confound Mrs. Trent.

Confound Pen, what did she want to interfere for?

Confound that bell. Would it never stop?

Yes it had. No it hadn't. Yes ... it had.

Give a few more minutes for laggards, and then——

Three melancholy and disappointed dogs were left in the Manor Garden, while Miles swung down the drive, past the church, and into the road that led to Wren's End.

What a morning it was!

The whole world seemed to have put on its Sunday frock. There had been rain in the night, and the air was full of the delicious fresh-washed smell of spring herbage. Wren's End seemed wonderfully quiet and deserted as Miles turned into the drive. As he neared the house he paused and listened, but there was no sound of high little voices anywhere.

Were they at church, then?

They couldn't be indoors on such a beautiful day.

Miles whistled softly, knowing that if William were anywhere within hearing, that would bring him at the double.

But no joyfully galumphing William appeared to welcome him.

He had no intention of ringing to inquire. No, he'd take a good look round first, before he went back to hang about outside the church.

It was pleasant in the Wren's End garden.

Presently he went down the broad central path of the walled garden, with borders of flowers and beds of vegetables. Half-way down, in the sunniest, warmest place, he came upon a hammock slung between an apple-tree not quite out and a pear-tree that was nearly over, and a voice from the hammock called sleepily: "Is that you, Earley? I wish you'd pick up my cigarette case for me; it's fallen into the lavender bush just below."

"Yes, Miss," a voice answered that was certainly not Earley's.

Meg leaned out of the hammock to look behind her.

"Hullo!" she said. "Why are you not in church? I can't get up because I'm a prisoner on parole. Short of a thunderstorm nothing is to move me from this hammock till Miss Ross comes back."

Miles stood in the pathway looking down at the muffled figure in the hammock. There was little to be seen of Meg save her rumpled, hatless head. She was much too economical of her precious caps to waste one in a hammock. She had slept for nearly two hours, then Hannah roused her with a cup of soup. She was drowsy and warm and comfortable, and her usually pale cheeks were almost as pink as the apple-blossom buds above her head.