anest, in his
vain endeavour to appear at ease.

Still she did not comprehend, and she looked to her father for light.
"Mr. Eubank is quartered on us," he said grimly.

And then for certain he wished that he had closed with the man while
they were alone; and had taken the chance of what might follow, pistol
or no pistol. For he saw the healthy brown of sun and wind fade from her
cheeks, and her grey eyes dilate with sudden terror; and he read in
these signs the perfect confirmation of the misgiving he had begun to
entertain. He knew as certainly as if she had told him that Mr. Fayle,
of Fawlcourt, was hidden at the farm. And what was worse, that Eubank,
if he had eyes, could not fail to know it also.

It was a relief to all three when a soldier sauntered into sight,
mooning up the path from the farm, and civilly greeting the owner, said
something about drinking his health. No further words passed then
between them, but all moved together towards the house, each avoiding
the other's eyes. The threshold reached, there was a momentary pause,
the girl looking full at the intruder with a flame of passion in her
face, as if she defied him to enter. But Eubank's eyes were lowered, he
saw nothing, and with a smirk, and a poor show of making apology, he
went in.

Hunt thought of force, and weighed the odds in his mind. But fresh from
prison, under the ban of Government, and with a wholesome dread of the
Marshalsea, he shrank from the attempt. And matters, once they were in
the house, went so quietly, that he began to fancy that he had been
mistaken. For one thing, the girl sought no private word with him, was
obtrusively public, and once gripped the nettle danger in a way that
startled him. It was at the evening meal. Eubank, ill at ease and
suspicious, was stealing glances this way and that, his one eye on the
settle that screened the entrance, the other on the staircase door that
led to the upper floor. On a sudden she rose as if she must speak or
choke. "Mr. Eubank," she cried, "you are here to hunt down Mr. Fayle!
You think that he is in my room! My room! I read it in your eyes, you
cur! You traitor!"

"Hush!" Hunt said in warning. This was no open fight such as he had
dared a score of times; and the malice in the man's face frightened him.

"But, I will speak!" she cried, fighting with her passion. "He thinks
it, and he shall search! Go--go now I Leave your men here, sir, to
watch, and do you see for yourself that he