Much to her disgust, it was Mr. Bradfield who met her at the station. However, circumstances had now cleared him from the worst of the charges of which she had secretly accused him; if Dick was alive, as she believed, it was certain that John Bradfield had not murdered him. So John, who was as gruff as ever, but rather shy, got a more civil greeting than he had ventured to hope. “I’ve got the phæton outside,” said he. “Your mother was afraid of the dog-cart; she said you would be. But she was wrong, I know. You don’t look like an invalid; you’ve come back cured.” “Yes,” she answered, drawing a quick breath. “I--I am quite well now, thank you.” “Any more disposed to be kind than you were, eh?” “That depends,” answered Chris, whose emotion was by this time too strong for her to conceal. John Bradfield looked at her with curiosity. “Depends on what?” But Chris waited a moment, and then she gave no direct answer. “Tell me,” said she, in a voice which trembled with eagerness, “have you had any visitors to-day?” John Bradfield’s face grew suddenly livid. “What visitors?” asked he, harshly, after a pause. “Ah! Then you have not--yet.” “Why,” cried he, in harsher tones than before, “what do you mean? Have you seen anybody?” He did not pretend not to know whom she meant. Chris looked up into his face with eyes full of eloquent appeal. “Mr. Bradfield, you know whom I mean. If you have not seen him yet, you will see him soon, I am sure of it.” “You have got up a little scene between you?” asked he in the same disagreeable tones. “I haven’t even seen him. But I know that he is coming. Mr. Bradfield, many things have happened which I don’t understand. I don’t know how it was that you could ever think him insane. Didn’t you know that he was deaf and dumb?” John Bradfield affected to start violently. He had had his cue. “Deaf and dumb!” he exclaimed. “Are you sure? Surely Stelfox would have found it out. Unless, indeed, the cunning old rascal deceived me for fear of losing his place.” And he affected to fall into a paroxysm of rage against the cunning man-servant. “You do believe, do you not,” he went on, earnestly, “that I would have cut off my hand rather than commit such a shocking injustice as I seem to have done in all good faith?” Chris was at first puzzled, and at last deceived by his vehemence. For the last argument he put forward was unanswerable. “What,” said he, “had I to gain by it? He was the son of one of my oldest friends, and I should have liked nothing better than to treat him as my own. Now I understand the hatred the poor lad seemed to have for me. Of course I always took it for one of the signs of insanity in him.” Insensibly Chris had allowed herself to be softened towards her companion, who had indeed succeeded in proving to her that she had most cruelly misjudged him.