Boringdon looked at her with quick suspicion. He had just learnt from Miss Vipen of Berwick's solitary drive with Mrs. Rebell. But the remark Mrs. Kemp had just made was wholly innocent in intention; she never dealt in innuendoes. "I wish," he said, impulsively, "that you would get to know Mrs. Rebell! Everyone else in the neighbourhood has called on her; have you any reason for not doing so?" She hesitated, then said slowly, "No. No real reason, except, of course, that we have never received, during all the years we have been here, any mark of attention or civility from Madame Sampiero, whose tenants after all we are. Also I fancied, from something that Doctor McKirdy said, that Mrs. Rebell did not wish to make many acquaintances in the neighbourhood." "It's a great pity, for she must feel very lonely, and I'm sure it would be much to her to have such friends as yourself, and as--as Lucy." The mother's heart hardened; Mrs. Kemp was no gossip, but she knew how much time Oliver had spent at the Priory during the fortnight Mrs. Boringdon had been away. "Yes, she must be rather lonely," and then she could not help adding, "but you are a great deal over there, are you not?" His answer made her feel ashamed of what she had said. "I am over there most days, but she cannot make a companion, a friend, of a man, as she could of you or of Lucy." Now surely was his opportunity for saying what he had come to say, but he found the task he had set himself demanded a bluntness, a crudity of speech, that was almost intolerable to him. "Mrs. Kemp, may I speak frankly to you?" There was a strong note of appeal in the speaker's voice. Mrs. Kemp gave him a quick, anxious look, and took her knitting off the table. "Certainly, frankness is always best," she said, then wondered with beating heart what he was about to tell her. She had felt, during the last few minutes, that Boringdon was only marking time. He was once more on his old terms of friendship with Lucy, indeed, the girl had lunched at Chancton Cottage that very day. But his next words shattered Mrs. Kemp's dream, and that most rudely. "I want you to call on Mrs. Rebell," he was saying in a low eager tone, "and to come really to know her, because--well, because I fear she is in some danger. It isn't a matter one wants to discuss, but James Berwick is constantly at the Priory, and his visits there are already being talked about in the neighbourhood. She is, as you know, a friend of my sister, and I feel a certain responsibility in the matter. Someone ought to put her on her guard."