“Then,” retorted the girl, “for all your talk about meanness being excusable in a girl, I can be a better friend than you.” Rudolph smiled. “Ah,” said he, “you forget that with you it is only a question of your friendship for Mrs. Dale. Now I have to think of both of you.” “You need not trouble yourself about me, I assure you.” “But that is just what I must do, madam, even at the risk of your eternal displeasure,” said Rudolph, with a mock-heroic air which concealed real anxiety. “You are not only daring enough, you are too daring where your heart is concerned, and it is the business of your friends to see that you do not suffer for your generosity.” He spoke with so much quiet decision that Mabin was impressed and rather frightened, and it was with a sudden drop from haughtiness to meekness that she then asked: “What are you going to do, then?” Rudolph hesitated. “What I should like to do,” said he, “is to take you to my mother’s----” Mabin almost screamed. “You won’t do that,” she said quietly, with her lips very tightly closed. “She would be very kind to you,” suggested Rudolph gently, pleadingly. He knew the prospect was not an enticing one, but he was not so quick as the girl to see all its disadvantages. “And don’t you see that it would set them all saying the most dreadful things about poor Mrs. Dale, if I were to leave her suddenly like that? I shouldn’t think of such a thing. It would be cruel as well as cowardly. She would never be able to stay in Stone after that.” “I don’t think she will be able to stay in any case,” said Rudolph gloomily. “If she is persecuted by this spy on the one hand, and by the old woman on the other, it isn’t likely that she will be able to stay here long.” A new idea flashed suddenly into Mabin’s mind and then quickly found expression: “Do you suppose,” she asked, “that this man, this Mr. Banks, is paid by the old lady to spy upon Mrs. Dale? The old lady must be very rich, I think, and she is eccentric evidently.” But Rudolph was inclined to think this idea far-fetched. From what he had seen of the mysterious spy he had come to quite another conclusion, one that at present he did not care to communicate to Mabin, for fear of alarming her unnecessarily. “Of course it is possible that the man may be a paid detective,” admitted he doubtfully, “but there was nothing of the cut of the ex-detective about your Mr. Banks. And now,” went on Rudolph, who found Mabin herself a more interesting mystery than the unknown man, “let us forget all about him for a little while, and go up to the old seat where the trees leave off, before it gets too dark for us to see the sea. You remember the old seat, and how we used to trespass to get at it, don’t you?”