questions sometimes." The girl's heart was beating with excitement as
she spoke; but she had made up her mind to seek this opportunity. It
seemed a pity, she thought, that two friends of hers should so
misunderstood one another.

"And what kind of questions?" asked Ralph again.

"She wonders--what you really think--" went on Margaret slowly, bending
down over her embroidery, and punctuating her words with
stitches--"about--about affairs--and--and she said one day that--"

"Well?" said Ralph in the same tone.

"That she thought you were not so severe as you seemed," ended Margaret,
her voice a little tremulous with amusement.

Ralph sat perfectly still, staring at the great fire-plate on which a
smoky Phoebus in relief drove the chariot of the sun behind the tall
wavering flames that rose from the burning logs. He knew very well why
Margaret had spoken, and that she would not speak without reason; but
the fact revealed was so bewilderingly new to him that he could not take
it in. Margaret looked at him once or twice a little uneasily; and at
last sighed.

"It is too dark," she said, "I must fetch candles."

She slipped out of the side-door that led to the servants' quarters, and
Ralph was left alone. All his weariness was gone now; the whirl of
images and schemes with which his brain had been seething as he walked
up the river-bank half-an-hour before, had receded into obscurity; and
one dominating thought filled their place: What if Margaret were right?
And what did he mean to do himself? Surely he was not--

The door from the entrance passage opened, and a tall slender figure
stood there, now in light, now in shadow, as the flames rose and fell.

"Meg," said a voice.

Ralph sat still a moment longer.

"Meg," said Beatrice again, "how dark you are."

Ralph stood up.

"Mrs Roper has just gone," he said, "you must put up with me, Mrs.
Beatrice."

"Who is it?" said the girl advancing. "Mr. Torridon?"

She had a paper in her hand as she came across the floor, and Ralph drew
out a chair for her on the other side of the hearth.

"Yes," he said. "Mrs. Roper has gone for lights. She will be back
immediately."

Beatrice sat down.

"It is a troublesome word," she said. "Master More cannot read it
himself, and has sent me to ask Meg. He says that every dutiful daughter
should be able to read her father's hand."

And Ralph could see a faint amused smile in her black eyes, as the
firelight shone on them.