“That’s just what she said of you when she refused to go, my dear,” said her husband, gently, in her ear, as, tottering under her weight, he helped her into the landau. Chris need not have felt apprehensive. Mr. Bradfield had thought matters over, and decided that the fortress was not to be stormed, that his best plan lay in starving out the garrison by a long and careful siege. Besides, it was too cold for ardent lovemaking; their jaws were stiff as they drove in the face of the winter wind. So that Chris was pleased to find that her drive back with Mr. Bradfield was a good deal pleasanter than her drive out had been in the company of Mrs. Graham-Shute. It was Mr. Bradfield who chose the topics of conversation after all. For he was so anxious to prove his good faith that he gave her no opportunity of starting any subject of her own, but beguiled the way by stories of his life on Australian sheep farms. His experience had been hard, and some of his tales of hardship and privation, while they had the desired effect of securing the young girl’s sympathy, made her shudder. “Why, I would rather have remained as poor as you say you were all my life than have made a large fortune in such hard ways as those!” she exclaimed. Mr. Bradfield’s face clouded suddenly at her words, so that Chris began to wonder what there was in her speech to offend him. To break the silence which followed, she said: “You must be very glad those hard times are over?” As he answered, one of the hard looks his face could assume at times made his features look repulsive in their rugged harshness. “Glad!” he exclaimed. “There isn’t a crime I wouldn’t commit sooner than go through them again.” Chris glanced at his face, and a sudden remembrance of Mr. Bradfield’s unfortunate ward flashed into her mind. Without reason, by a woman’s sensitive instinct, she connected the words he had just uttered, the hard, harsh spirit which they betrayed, with the treatment of the man whom he kept shut up in such a mysterious manner in the east wing. By this time they were passing Wyngham Station. A few passengers were coming out in a straggling thread, for the London train had just come in. Although the afternoon was light for the time of year, it was too dark to distinguish clearly the faces of these people, although something of their figures was discernible. Mr. Bradfield’s gaze was suddenly attracted by the appearance of a man who was walking in the road a little in front of the dog-cart. As soon as he caught sight of him, he stopped abruptly in the middle of a remark he was making to Chris. As his voice, besides being very gruff, was very loud, Chris saw nothing remarkable in the fact that as he stopped speaking, the man in the road turned quickly round. “John Bradfield!” he cried, stepping back to the roadside. He had not spoken loudly, so there was nothing surprising in the fact that Mr. Bradfield drove on, apparently without hearing the stranger’s voice.