Chris had stolen into the recess formed by the great bay window on the western side of the room. She heard a sound like the breaking of glass outside, and had left her place at the piano to look out. Raising the heavy curtain, and pulling back the blind, she saw dimly through the moisture on the window-pane, the forms of two men, one of whom was so close that he seemed to have been trying to look through the window. She could just see enough of them to know that the figures were those of Mr. Richard and his keeper Stelfox, and her heart leapt up, and her brain seemed suddenly to be on fire, as there rang in her ears the words used by Mr. Marrable about Gilbert Wryde. Gilbert Wryde! Gilbert Wryde--Mr. Bradfield’s benefactor! She remembered the portrait bearing that name, and she remembered Mr. Bradfield’s change of expression at the sight of it. That expression, which she had taken for annoyance, must then have been caused by some more tender emotion, to which also the subsequent disappearance of the miniature must be traced. And then the likeness between the portrait of Gilbert Wryde and the solitary occupant of the east wing? Chris felt sick with excitement, bewilderment and fear. She would have given the world to be able to forget the problem which was beginning to trouble her peace of mind, to shut her mind to the questions she could not help asking. In the meantime, a great impulse of pity for Mr. Richard, spending his Christmas alone except for his attendant, and peeping in through the windows at the warmth and light inside the room he was not allowed to enter, seized her, and caused her to find an opportunity of leaving the room unobserved. Putting on a hooded cloak, and wrapping it tightly round her, she went out into the garden. Chris, who had run down the steps, paused at the bottom. The impulse upon which she had acted in coming out into the night was the kindly one of exchanging a Christmas greeting with the outcast from the east wing. But to this impulse had succeeded a fit of maidenly shyness. Twice since their last meeting in the barn, she had encountered Mr. Richard in the park in a manner which could scarcely have been the result of chance, and on each of these occasions the silent happiness he had shown in her society had touched her deeply; so deeply, indeed, that she could not help feeling a little self-consciousness about this meeting which she herself was bringing about. Whether she would have turned back, following the dictates of her impulse of shyness and maidenly modesty, it is impossible to say. For at that moment she heard a footstep on the path, and a great thrill of a feeling she did not understand passed through her as a voice she had never heard before said low in her ear: “I wish you a merry Christmas.” With a start she turned, and put her hand into that of Mr. Richard, who kissed it with the fervour of a lover. “I am afraid your Christmas is not a very merry one,” she said gently.