st the
opportunity she had offered to ask that too pointed question; but I looked
down at the floor as I spoke; I wanted her to understand that I was not
cross-examining her.

"I knew you saw us," she returned in the same even tone that she had used
all through this conversation of ours. She had not once raised or lowered
her voice. She might have been speaking a part, just to test her memory.

"Yes, I did," I said. "Quite by accident, of course. I had no idea that he
had come up here. I hadn't seen him since breakfast."

"It was a mistake," she said simply.

I looked up at her, hoping with no shadow of reason that I might have
played some part in her discovery that that caress in the wood had been a
mistake. But she had not changed colour nor moved her attitude, and her
voice was still free from any emotion as she said,--

"We thought, Brenda and I thought, that we might trick him. It was a piece
of chicane. She and I were rather silly this morning. We excite each
other. In a sort of way she dared me. But I was sorry afterwards and so
was Brenda, although she thought it might be better as I'd gone so far to
keep it up until Arthur had got a promise or something out of Mr.
Jervaise. I had meant to do that. I don't know why I didn't."

"But do you think that Frank Jervaise realises that you were only playing
with him for your own ends, this morning?" I asked.

"Oh! yes," she said with perfect assurance. "As a matter of fact, he was
very suspicious this morning. He's like his mother and sister in
suspecting everybody."

"Do you think he'll make trouble?" I said. "Now? Up at the Hall?"

"Yes, I do. He's vindictive," she replied. "That's one reason why I'm glad
you are with us, now. It might help--though I don't quite see how. Perhaps
it's just the feeling of having some one else on our side. Because I'm
afraid that there's going to be a lot of trouble when my father and mother
come home. With my father, more particularly. He'll be afraid of being
turned out. It will be very difficult to make him take up a new idea.
He'll hate the thought of leaving here and starting all over again in
Canada. He loves this place so."

"And I suppose he likes, or at least respects, the Jervaises?" I said.

"Not much," she replied. "They've made it very difficult for us in many
ways."

"Deliberately?" I suggested.

"They don't care," she said, warming a little for the first time. "They
simply don't think of any one but themselv