‘Oh, that’s a different thing,’ quoth the old woman. ‘If Nell can get Lord Ilfracombe to plead with Sir Archibald on our account, why, of course, she’ll do it, for her own sake as well as for ours; won’t you, my lass?’ ‘Plead with Lord Ilfracombe!’ cried Nell hysterically. ‘No, no, indeed, I cannot. What has he to do with Sir Archibald’s rents? He is only a guest in the house. It would be too much to ask. It would place him in an unpleasant position. I would not presume to do such a thing.’ Both her parents rounded on her at once. ‘Well, of all the ungrateful hussies as I ever saw,’ said her father, ‘you’re the worst. You come home to see your poor parents toiling and moiling to keep a roof above their heads, and nigh breaking their hearts over the raising of the rent and the idea of having to leave the old homestead, and you refuse even to speak a word to save them from starvation.’ ‘Well, I never did!’ cried her mother. ‘Here you’ve been home for nearly a year, and no more use than a baby, what with your London training and your illness, and your fid-fads and the first thing as your poor father asks you to do for him you downright refuse. I didn’t think it of you, Nell, and I begin to fear, like father, that there must be something under it all as you’re afraid to let us know.’ ‘But I shall know it for all that,’ said the farmer; ‘for I’ll see this fine lord with the break of day, and ask him downright under what circumstances you left his service. If he’s a gentleman, he’ll answer the question, and give me some sort of satisfaction. I won’t put up with this sort of treatment from you no longer, my lass, and so I give you plain notice.’ ‘Very well. Do as you like. It’s all the same to me,’ cried Nell, as she rose from the table and rushed from the room. Her sleeping apartment was over the lodgers’ rooms, and as she reached it she locked the door and flung herself on the bed, face downwards, in an agony of apprehension. What was going to happen next? she asked herself. What was to be the next scene in her life’s tragedy? Would her irate father force the truth from the earl, or would he guess it from his embarrassment? Would the story come to the ears of the countess, and make mischief between her husband and herself? There seemed to be no end to the horrors that might happen from her father having gained knowledge of the proximity of her former employer. And if he confided his doubts to Hugh Owen, or any of the Dale Farm party, might not he add his quota to the chapter of horrors by relating what he had witnessed in the field the night before? Poor Nell could get no rest that night for thinking of these things, and wondering how she should come out of them all. She rose after a while and bathed her burning and swollen eyelids in cold water, and took a seat by the open casement and out-gazed into the calm, peaceful night. The air was warm and balmy, but there were few stars, and the moon was in her first quarter.