“Strange. Perhaps—” “Dan went out one night, and gave me this in the morning. Where it came from I cannot tell, unless Isaac, his father, gave it him.” Jeffray sat in thought, balancing the brooch in his palm, and gazing out over the still waters of the pool. Bess watched him, her hands resting on the stone, her brown forearms bare to the elbow. “Bess,” he said to her at last. She swayed slightly towards him, her eyes on his. “Can you discover how Dan came by the brooch?” She frowned, and her mouth hardened; it was not in her heart to seek anything from Dan. “I will not ask anything from him,” she said. “Why not, Bess?” “Because I hate him, hate him night and day.” Richard looked at her almost wistfully. “Yet you may learn something of your past from him,” he said. “Yes—” “You may be no Grimshaw, Bess; you look to have finer blood in you than theirs.” Bess lifted her head as though some ennoblement would be very sweet to one who felt the shame of her present lot. Any such discovery would lift her nearer to Jeffray and lessen that gulf between them that was ever stretched before her pride. “I will try,” she said at last—“try what I can learn from Dan. He is a great fool, though he is so strong.” “And you do not love him any better?” “Love Dan?” “Yes.” “Ah, is there any heart in me that I should love the brute! I have felt near killing him before now.” Scarcely had this burst of passion spent itself in words when Bess’s face grew bleak and set. She held up a hand and sat listening, rigid yet alert. Jeffray could hear nothing, for his ears were less quick to the sounds of the forest than the girl’s. Only by the look of strained intentness on her face could he tell that she caught sounds that did not reach his hearing. “What is it?” he asked her, in a whisper. “I hear a dog panting in the wood.” “Ah!” “Where is your horse?” “Well out of sight of the path.” “Good. Listen to that!” The rapid sound of some brute beast’s breathing drew near out of the silence of the wood. Even Jeffray could hear it as he sat with his eyes fixed on Bess’s face. Then a whistle shrilled out from the darkness of the trees, seeming to make the still air quiver. It was Dan’s whistle, and the panting was the panting of his dog. Quick as thought Bess started up, beckoned to Jeffray, and ran through the grass towards the hermitage. The man followed her, glancing back over his shoulder at the impenetrable shadows of the yews. Bess sprang in up the low steps of the doorway, seized Richard’s wrist as he entered after her, and, with her face close to his, spoke in a whisper. “It is Dan, curse him!” “He may not see us.” “The devil must have put it into the fool’s head to come this way.” “Shall I slip out and leave you?” Bess understood the spirit that prompted him, and that it was not cowardice that inspired the question. They were still very close to each other, Bess’s stray side curls brushing Jeffray’s cheek. “Stay with me,” she said. “Bess!”