's queer to me too," she answered, "Get thee into bed, Liz."

Many a battle was fought upon that homely couch when Liz was slumbering
quietly, and the child's soft regular breathing was the only sound to
be heard in the darkened room. Amid the sordid cares and humiliations
of Joan's rough life, there had arisen new ones. She had secret
struggles--secret yearnings,--and added to these, a secret terror. When
she lay awake thinking, she was listening for her father's step. There
was not a night in which she did not long for, and dread to hear it.
If he stayed out all night, she went down to her work under a load of
foreboding. She feared to look into the faces of her work-fellows, lest
they should have some evil story to tell, she feared the road over which
she had to pass, lest at some point, its very dust should cry out to
her in a dark stain. She knew her father better than the oldest of his
companions, and she watched him closely.

"He's what yo' wenches ud ca' a handsum chap, that theer," said Lowrie
to her, the night of his encounter with Derrick. "He's a tall chap an'
a strappin' chap an' he's getten a good-lookin' mug o' his own, but,"
clenching his fist slowly and speaking, "I've not done wi' him yet--I
has not quite done wi' him. Wait till I ha', an' then see what yo'll
say about his beauty. Look yo' here, lass,"--more slowly and heavily
still,--"he'll noan be so tall then nor yet so straight an' strappin'.
I'll smash his good-lookin' mug if I'm dom'd to hell fur it. Heed tha
that?"

Instead of taking lodgings nearer the town or avoiding the Knoll Road,
as Grace advised him to do when he heard of Joan's warning, Derrick
provided himself with a heavy stick, stuck a pistol into his belt every
night when he left his office, and walked home as usual, keeping a sharp
lookout, however.

"If I avoid the fellow," he said to Grace, "he will suspect at once that
I feel I have cause to fear him; and if I give him grounds for such a
belief as that I might as well have given way at first."

Strange to say he was not molested. The excitement seemed to die a
natural death in the course of a few days. Lowrie came back to his work
looking sullen and hard, but he made no open threats, and he even seemed
easier to manage. Certainly Derrick found his companions more respectful
and submissive. There was less grumbling among them and more passive
obedience. The rules were not broken, openly, at least, and he himself
was not defie