She had turned farther away, as if to conceal emotions too profound to be shared. At first he thought she was crying, and wondered why. Then it was borne in upon him that she was laughing, and he became instantly and hotly resentful. “If you are laughing at me and my little lunacy, it is all right,” he exploded. “But if it’s at Poictiers----” When she let him see her face again it was perfectly straight, but there were twin imps of mockery dancing in the eyes of desire. “Between you and Mr. Carfax it is hard for a poor country mouse to find breathing space,” she asserted. “Am I to understand that you are trying to congratulate me?” Tregarvon frowned heavily. “No; Poictiers is the one to be congratulated--if you were not laughing at him.” “I wasn’t,” she denied promptly. “He is much too splendid to be laughed at. Don’t criticise the word; it is the only one that fits him.” “Then you were laughing at me?” “No.” “At what I said, then? that is just as cruel.” “Why will you insist upon being so quarrelsome? I was laughing because I couldn’t help it. Let us talk about something else; about your mine. Have you been having any more of the mysterious trouble?” “Yes; it is one thing after another. You heard what Poictiers was telling at the table this evening. He made it sound like hard luck, but it isn’t luck; it’s design. Some one is making the trouble for us.” “Who would do such a thing as that?” “For a long time we were totally in the dark. But now we know the man.” Miss Richardia had the translucent complexion that harmonizes perfectly with cloudy blue eyes and masses of light-brown hair brightened by touches of warmer tints; hence there was no telltale pink to vanish at the command of sudden emotion. Yet Tregarvon saw she was startled, and that the exciting cause was quick-springing anxiety. “You have seen him?” she asked. “Rucker, the machinist, has.” Tregarvon was always making good resolutions about not talking too much, and always breaking them. It had been no part of his intention to refer to the incriminating incident in which Richardia herself figured as one of the two actors, but the inexpedient thing was said and he could only hope that Richardia would not ask for more. She was looking away again when she said: “Now that you know, I suppose you will defend your rights?” “Take legal steps, you mean? I don’t wish to do that, if it can be avoided.” “No; anything but that!” she pleaded in low tones. “You must remember the provocation.” “I didn’t give the provocation.” “No; but you are associated, in a way, with those who did. You have inherited a legacy of ill will.” “I might be able to understand that, if the man who is making the trouble were one of the ignorant natives. But he is not.” “No,” she agreed half-absently; “he is not.” “Then you know who it is?” said Tregarvon, again permitting himself to say one of the things which might better have been left unsaid.