freehold and tapped at the door,
which stood ajar.

Nobody came: hearing a slight movement within he crossed the threshold.
Avice was there alone, sitting on a low stool in a dark corner, as
though she wished to be unobserved by any casual passer-by. She looked
up at him without emotion or apparent surprise; but he could then see
that she was crying. The view, for the first time, of distress in
an unprotected young girl towards whom he felt drawn by ties of
extraordinary delicacy and tenderness, moved Pierston beyond measure. He
entered without ceremony.

'Avice, my dear girl!' he said. 'Something is the matter!'

She looked assent, and he went on: 'Now tell me all about it. Perhaps I
can help you. Come, tell me.'

'I can't!' she murmured. 'Grammer Stockwool is upstairs, and she'll
hear!' Mrs. Stockwool was the old woman who had come to live with the
girl for company since her mother's death.

'Then come into my garden opposite. There we shall be quite private.'

She rose, put on her hat, and accompanied him to the door. Here she
asked him if the lane were empty, and on his assuring her that it was
she crossed over and entered with him through the garden-wall.

The place was a shady and secluded one, though through the boughs the
sea could be seen quite near at hand, its moanings being distinctly
audible. A water-drop from a tree fell here and there, but the rain was
not enough to hurt them.

'Now let me hear it,' he said soothingly. 'You may tell me with the
greatest freedom. I was a friend of your mother's, you know. That is, I
knew her; and I'll be a friend of yours.'

The statement was risky, if he wished her not to suspect him of being
her mother's false one. But that lover's name appeared to be unknown to
the present Avice.

'I can't tell you, sir,' she replied unwillingly; 'except that it has to
do with my own changeableness. The rest is the secret of somebody else.'

'I am sorry for that,' said he.

'I am getting to care for one I ought not to think of, and it means
ruin. I ought to get away!'.

'You mean from the island?'

'Yes.'

Pierston reflected. His presence in London had been desired for some
time; yet he had delayed going because of his new solicitudes here. But
to go and take her with him would afford him opportunity of watching
over her, tending her mind, and developing it; while it might remove
her from some looming danger. It was a somewhat awkward guardianship for
him, as a lonel