chard is here, but you can't see her now. What do you want
with Mrs. Prichard? Who are you?"

The man kept looking uneasily up and down the road. "I'm a bad hand at
talking, mostly. Standing about don't suit me--not for conversation. If
you was to happen to have such a thing as a chair inside, and you was to
make the offer, I might see about telling you what I want of old Goody
Prichard."

Gwen looked at him and recognised him. She would have done so at once
had his clothes been the same as when she saw him before, in the doorway
at Sapps Court. He was that man, of course! Only with this difference,
that while on that occasion his get-up was nearest that of a
horse-keeper, his present one was a carter's. He might have been taken
for one, if you had not seen his face. Gwen said to him:--"You can pass
the dog. Don't do anything to irritate him." He entered and sat down.

"Where have you got the old woman?" said he.

"First tell me what you want with her."

"To introduce myself to her. I wrote her a letter nigh a fortnight
since. What did I say to her in that letter? Told her I was looking
forward to _re_-newing her acquaintance. You tell the old lady that,
from me. You might go so far as to say it's Ralph, back again." An idea
seemed to intensify his gaze of admiration, or rather avidity, narrowing
it to her face. "This ain't my first sight of _you_, allowance made for
toggery."

Gwen merely lifted her eyebrows. But seeing his offensive eyes waiting,
she conceded:--"Possibly not," and remained silent.

He chose to interpret this as invitation to continue, although it was
barely permission. "I set eyes on you first, as I was coming out of a
door. You were coming in at that door. You looked at me to recollect me,
for I saw you take notice. Ah!--you've no call to blaze at me on that
account. You may just as well come down off of the high ropes."

For Gwen's face had shown what she thought of him, as he sat there, half
wincing before her, half defiant. She was not in the habit of concealing
her thoughts. "I see you are a reptile," said she explicitly. And then,
not noticing his snigger of satisfaction at having, as it were, _drawn_
her:--"What were you doing at Mr. Wardle's?"

"Ah--what was I a-doing at Moses Wardle's? I suppose you know what _he_
was? Or maybe you don't?"

"What was he?"

The convict's ugly grin, going to the twisted side of his face, made it
monstrous. "Mayhap you don't know what they call a _s