"Why, what is the matter with you, child?" Aynesworth exclaimed.

"I have loved them so all my life," she sobbed; "the pictures, and the
house, and the gardens, and now I have to go away! I don't know where!
Nobody seems to know!"

Aynesworth looked down at her black frock.

"You have lost someone, perhaps?" he said.

"My father," she answered quietly. "He was organist here, and he died
last week."

"And you have no other relatives?" he asked.

"None at all. No one--seems--quite to know--what is going to become of
me!" she sobbed.

"Where are you staying now?" he inquired.

"With an old woman who used to look after our cottage," she answered.
"But she is very poor, and she cannot keep me any longer. Mrs. Colson
says that I must go and work, and I am afraid. I don't know anyone
except at Tredowen! And I don't know how to work! And I don't want to
go away from the pictures, and the garden, and the sea! It is all so
beautiful, isn't it? Don't you love Tredowen?"

"Well, I haven't been here very long, you see," Aynesworth explained.

Wingrave spoke for the first time. His eyes were fixed upon the child,
and Aynesworth could see that she shrank from his cold, unsympathetic
scrutiny.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Juliet Lundy," she answered.

"How long was your father organist at the church?"

"I don't know," she answered. "Ever since I was born, and before."

"And how old are you?"

"Fourteen next birthday."

"And all that time," he asked, "has there been no one living at
Tredowen?"

"No one except Mrs. Tresfarwin," she answered. "It belongs to a very
rich man who is in prison."

Wingrave's face was immovable. He stood on one side, however, and turned
towards his companion.

"We are keeping this young lady," he remarked, "from what seems to be
her daily pilgrimage. I wonder whether it is really the pictures, or
Mrs. Tresfarwin's cakes?"

She turned her shoulder upon him in silent scorn, and looked at
Aynesworth a little wistfully.

"Goodbye!" she said.

He waved his hand as he strolled after Wingrave.

"There you are, Mr. Lord of the Manor," he said. "You can't refuse to do
something for the child. Her father was organist at your own church, and
a hard struggle he must have had of it, with an absentee landlord, and a
congregation of seagulls, I should think."

"Are you joking?" Wingrave asked coldly.

"I was never more in earnest in my life," Aynesworth answered. "The girl
is come fr