if she
stood before the Vicar himself--a culprit caught in a guilty act.

She looked at Olive without words, and Olive looked straight back at her
with that withering look of the righteous condemning the ungodly which so
often regarded a dumb but rebellious congregation through the Vicar's
stern eyes.

Piers, however, was not fashioned upon timid lines, and he stepped into
the hall without the faintest sign of embarrassment.

"Hullo, little girl!" he said. "Why aren't you in bed?"

The accusing eyes turned upon him. Olive seemed to swell with
indignation. "I was in bed long ago," she made answer, still in those
frozen tones. "May I ask what you are doing here, Mr. Evesham?"

"I?" said Piers jauntily. "Now what do you suppose?"

"I cannot imagine," the child said.

"Not really?" said Piers. "Well, perhaps when you are a little older
your imagination will develop. In the meantime, if you are a wise
little girl, you will run back to bed and leave your elders to settle
their own affairs."

Olive drew herself up with dignity. "It is not my intention to go so
long as you are in the house," she said with great distinctness.

"Indeed!" said Piers. "And why not?"

He spoke with the utmost quietness, but Avery caught the faintest tremor
in his voice that warned her that Olive was treading dangerous ground.

She hastened to intervene. "But of course you are going now," she said to
him. "It is bedtime for us all. Good-night! And thank you for walking
home with me!"

Her own tone was perfectly normal. She turned to him with outstretched
hand, but he put it gently aside.

"One minute!" he said. "I should like an answer to my question first. Why
are you so determined to see me out of the house?"

He looked straight at Olive as he spoke, no longer careless of mien, but
implacable as granite.

Olive, however, was wholly undismayed. She was the only one of the
Vicar's children who had never had cause to feel a twinge of fear. "You
had better ask yourself that question," she said, in her cool young
treble. "You probably know the answer better than I do."

Piers' expression changed. For a single instant he looked furious, but he
mastered himself almost immediately. "It's a lucky thing for you that you
are not my little girl," he observed grimly. "If you were, you should
have the slapping of your life to-night. As it is,--well, you have asked
me for an explanation of my presence here, and you shall have one. I am
here i