the halting figure across
the room.

"What are you afraid of?" she asked.

"When mother and I talk things over," he said, "we always do it where no
one can see or hear. It's the only way to be safe."

"Safe from what?"

His eyes fixed themselves on her as he answered her almost sullenly.

"Safe from people who might listen and go and tell that we had been
talking."

In his thwarted-looking, odd child-face there was a shade of appeal not
wholly hidden by his evident wish not to be boylike. Betty felt a desire
to kneel down suddenly and embrace him, but she knew he was not prepared
for such a demonstration. He looked like a creature who had lived
continually at bay, and had learned to adjust himself to any situation
with caution and restraint.

"Sit down, Ughtred," she said, and when he did so she herself sat down,
but not too near him.

Resting his chin on the handle of a crutch, he gazed at her almost
protestingly.

"I always have to do these things," he said, "and I am not clever
enough, or old enough. I am only eleven."

The mention of the number of his years was plainly not apologetic, but
was a mere statement of his limitations. There the fact was, and he must
make the best of it he could.

"What things do you mean?"

"Trying to make things easier--explaining things when she cannot think
of excuses. To-day it is telling you what she is too frightened to tell
you herself. I said to her that you must be told. It made her nervous
and miserable, but I knew you must."

"Yes, I must," Betty answered. "I am glad she has you to depend on,
Ughtred."

His crutch grated on the floor and his boy eyes forbade her to believe
that their sudden lustre was in any way connected with restrained
emotion.

"I know I seem queer and like a little old man," he said. "Mother cries
about it sometimes. But it can't be helped. It is because she has never
had anyone but me to help her. When I was very little, I found out how
frightened and miserable she was. After his rages," he used no name,
"she used to run into my nursery and snatch me up in her arms and hide
her face in my pinafore. Sometimes she stuffed it into her mouth and bit
it to keep herself from screaming. Once--before I was seven--I ran into
their room and shouted out, and tried to fight for her. He was going
out, and had his riding whip in his hand, and he caught hold of me and
struck me with it--until he was tired."

Betty stood upright.

"What! What! Wh