Mabin blushed a little. She remembered the old seat very well; an old broken-down bench supported on the stumps of a couple of felled trees, just on the edge of the plantation belonging to “The Towers.” Being conveniently near both to “Stone House” and the Vicarage, the children of both houses had established, in those far-off years which Rudolph was recalling, a right to tread down the old fence at that particular point, and to hold wonderful picnics of butterscotch and sour apples. “We won’t go up there now,” she said, with a sudden demureness which contrasted strongly with the eagerness she had shown while discussing the persecution of Mrs. Dale. “It’s getting dark, and rather cold, I think, and besides, I hope by this time that Mrs. Dale may be ready to see us again.” Rudolph felt snubbed. The girl’s manner was so precise, so stiff, that it was impossible for him to understand that her sudden primness was only a relapse into her ferocious girlish modesty. He followed her without a word toward the house, and there just inside the portico they saw the slight figure in black looking like a pathetic vision in the gloaming, with its white, tear-stained face and slender little jewelled hands. “Well?” said Mrs. Dale. And her voice was hoarse and broken. “I have been waiting here for you, wondering where you had gone. I had almost begun to think,” she went on, with assumed playfulness, which did not hide the fact that her fear had been real, “that you had run away from me altogether.” Mabin lost her awkwardness, her stiffness, her shy, girlish reserve in an instant; moved by strong pity and affection, she took the two steps which brought her under the portico, and stooping, flung her arms round the little figure. “You didn’t--really?” she whispered hoarsely. “Oh, I hope not, I hope not!” Mrs. Dale could not answer. But Mabin felt her frame quiver from head to foot, and heard the sound of a stifled sob. Rudolph stepped noiselessly out into the garden again. “My dear, my dear child,” murmured Mrs. Dale, when she had recovered some of her self-possession by a strong effort, “you would have been quite justified if you had gone. But I am glad, oh, so glad, that you have waited for me to drive you away.” “You won’t do that!” cried Mabin, starting back, and seeing with surprise in the fair, blue-eyed face an expression of strong resolution. “After pretending you were so glad to have me!” “It was no pretence, believe me!” said Mrs. Dale with a sad little smile. “But I have got to send you away all the same. It would not be right to keep you here, now that I see the persecution I am to be subjected to still.” And her blue eyes flashed angrily as she spoke. But the next moment her face changed again, and she added quickly, “I have deserved it all. More than all. I am not complaining of that; I have no right to complain. Only--she might have spared you. I should have done you no harm; you would have learnt no evil from me, wicked as I am.”