At his wakening she had set her hand upon his shoulder, as though to hint that he was under fair protection. Old Ursula had whispered to the girl that she was to be polite, nay, servile, to the gentleman, since the Squire of Rodenham might prove a troublesome neighbor should he care to charge Dan with violence. Servility, however, was not part of Bess’s nature. She did not even call Mr. Richard “sir,” and though she abated her masterfulness, she spoke to him as to an equal. “Bide still,” she said, leaning over him and looking in his eyes, “you are safe with us.” Richard could see the girl’s face in the dusk, white beneath the dead black hair. There was the deliciousness of youth in the rare roundness of her cheek, the smooth low forehead, the strong chin and pouting mouth. “Where am I?” he asked her, quietly, with his hands lying on the many-colored quilt. “In our cottage—Ursula’s cottage. I made Dan carry you home from the woods.” “Ah, I had the worst of it. What happened? Tell me.” Bess was pleased with his voice. “Dan hit you over the head,” she said. “I can believe that,” quoth Richard, with a smile. “I picked your pistols out of the holsters, and swore I would shoot him if he struck you again.” Jeffray’s thoughts were not of himself for the moment. He lay silent, looking up at Bess, still feeling the pressure of her hand upon his shoulder. The room was growing very dark. He could see only her hair as a deep shadow above the white oval of her face. “You are one of the forest-folk?” he asked. “I am Bess—Bess Grimshaw.” “And Ursula?” “Is my mother. I live with her.” “And Dan—?” “Is my cousin.” The tawny light had melted out of the sky. From the kitchen came the murmur of Isaac’s voice as he argued with old Ursula. They were speaking of Richard and of Dan. The same subjects were in Bess’s thought, and perhaps the man in the bed divined the same. “Bess,” he said, suddenly, calling her by her Christian name as he would have called a child. She started and bent over him, leaning more heavily upon his shoulder. “What happened to David?” She seemed puzzled for the moment, and then flushed up redly in the dusk. “David ran away,” she said. “Yes.” “He was terrified of Dan. They pressed him at Portsmouth for the king’s navy. We heard it from a peddler who had seen the lad marched off.” They were both silent for a while, Richard’s eyes turned towards the window, Bess’s hand still on Jeffray’s shoulder. The same thoughts were in either heart. By some strange flash of sympathy Jeffray and the girl seemed to understand each other. “Are you afraid of your cousin?” he asked, suddenly. “Of Dan?” “Yes.” She looked down into the man’s face. “I shall carry a knife,” she said, with peculiar significance. “I am a match for Dan—” “I will leave you my pistols.” Then came the pattering of Dame Ursula’s slippers across the flagged floor of the kitchen. The door opened and Bess of the Woods was called away.