She went red and looked troubled of a sudden, drooping her black lashes, and beating her hands together softly as though measuring out the rhythm of her thoughts. There was a wistfulness about her mouth that begot in Jeffray a great yearning to comfort her. “Bess,” he said. She lifted her chin and looked at him, the light welling up again into her eyes. “If Dan is for being a brute to you—” “Yes?” “Come to me at Rodenham. We can give you a home there—until—we see further into the future.” Richard had almost spoken of his marriage, but had strangled the confession before it had been uttered. Bess was looking at him steadily with much forethought in her eyes. Richard’s chivalry did not wholly convince her; some self-conscious and intangible difficulty appeared to be hampering his mind. “I thank you, Mr. Jeffray,” she said, slowly, “but—” “Well?” “You would be ashamed of me in your great house.” Richard colored and looked at her appealingly. “On my honor, Bess, no. Can you think such a thing of me?” She smiled, half sadly, and still watched him with a species of instinctive incredulity. “If they make me desperate,” she began. “You will let me help you?” “Ah, but then—” “Promise me, Bess. You saved my life once. And are you nothing to me?” The words had slipped with sudden intensity off Richard’s tongue. They seemed the very words that Bess had hoped to hear from him, and that she was hungry to take into her heart. She drooped her shoulders a little, her eyes shining, her hands hanging idly at her sides. “Mr. Jeffray—” “Yes?” “I will come to you if—” Richard’s face had kindled in turn, and his eyes had caught the light in the woman’s. He held his breath, and found himself trembling as he looked at her. “On my honor, you shall be safe at Rodenham.” She laughed, and moved nearer to him, her mouth and chin upturned to his. “I hate Dan,” she said. “Yes?” “I did not dream of him on St. Agnes’s night. It was of you, Mr. Jeffray. I dreamed that I was gathering herbs in the ruins here, and that I picked a great, red flower that turned to blood in my hand. Then—I saw you standing in the doorway yonder—looking at me, and then—I awoke.” Richard gazed at her. She was very near to him, so near that he almost felt her breath upon his mouth. He forgot Miss Jilian utterly for the moment in the near splendor of this woman’s face. “I shall pray to St. Agnes, Bess,” he said. She smiled at him wonderfully with her eyes. “I almost blessed Dan, sir, for wounding you in the woods.” “Bess!” “I have kept the cup out of which you drank, and put orpine in it, and it grows lustily. Listen, did you hear Dan’s gun? He’s down by the fish-ponds after wild duck.”