hen Mr. Rhys suddenly asked,

"Of whom have you ever been afraid, Eleanor, where your natural courage
did not have full play?"

"Mr. Carlisle."

"How was that?"

"I was in a false position."

"I feared that, at one time," said Mr. Rhys thoughtfully.

"I was a bond woman--under engagements that tied me--I did not dare do
as I felt. I understand it all now."

"Do you like to tell me how it happened?"

"I like it very much. I want that you should know just how it was. I
was pressed into those engagements without my heart being in them, and
indeed very much against my will; but I was dazzled by a vision of
worldly glory that made me too weak to resist. Then thoughts of another
kind began to rise within me; I saw that worldly glory was not the
sufficient thing I had thought it; and as my eyes got clear, I found I
had given no love where I had given my promise. Then that consciousness
hampered me in every action."

"But you did not break with him--with Mr. Carlisle?"

"Because I was such a bondwoman, as I told you. I did not know what I
might do--what was right,--and I wanted to do right then; till I went
to Plassy. Aunt Caxton set me free."

Mr. Rhys was silent a little.

"Do you remember coming to visit the old window in the ruins, just
before you went to Plassy that time?" he said, looking round at her
with a smile.

His wife though she was, Eleanor could not help a warm flush of
consciousness coming over her at the recollection.

"I remember," she said demurely. "It was in December."

"What were you afraid of at that time?"

"Mr. Carlisle."

"Did you think it was _he_ whom you heard?'

"No. I thought it was you."

"Then why were you afraid?"

"I had reason enough," said Eleanor, in a low voice. "Mr. Carlisle had
taken it into his head to become jealous of you."

She answered with a certain straightforward dignity, but Mr. Rhys had a
view of dyed cheeks and a face which shrank from his eye. He beheld it,
no doubt, for a little while; at least he was silent; and ended with
one or two kisses which to Eleanor's feeling, for she dared not look,
spoke him very full of satisfaction. But he never brought up the
subject again.

The thoughts raised by the talk about the basket of fruit recurred
again a few days later. Eleanor had got into full train of her island
life by this time. She was studying hard to learn the language, and
beginning to speak words of it with her strange muster of servants.
Hous