At last footsteps and a light; the chained door was opened a little, and a voice asked who it was. Esther explained; the door was opened, and she stood face to face with her old mistress. Mrs. Barfield stood, holding the candle high, so that she could see Esther. Esther knew her at once. She had not changed very much. She kept her beautiful white teeth and her girlish smile; the pointed, vixen-like face had not altered in outline, but the reddish hair was so thin that it had to be parted on the side and drawn over the skull; her figure was delicate and sprightly as ever. Esther noticed all this, and Mrs. Barfield noticed that Esther had grown stouter. Her face was still pleasant to see, for it kept that look of blunt, honest nature which had always been its charm. She was now the thick-set working woman of forty, and she stood holding the hem of her jacket in her rough hands. "We'd better put the chain up, for I'm alone in the house." "Aren't you afraid, ma'am?" "A little, but there's nothing to steal. I asked the policeman to keep a look-out. Come into the library." There was the round table, the little green sofa, the piano, the parrot's cage, and the yellow-painted presses; and it seemed only a little while since she had been summoned to this room, since she had stood facing her mistress, her confession on her lips. It seemed like yesterday, and yet seventeen years and more had gone by. And all these years were now a sort of a blur in her mind--a dream, the connecting links of which were gone, and she stood face to face with her old mistress in the old room. "You've had a cold journey, Esther; you'd like some tea?" "Oh, don't trouble, ma'am." "It's no trouble; I should like some myself. The fire's out in the kitchen. We can boil the kettle here." They went through the baize door into the long passage. Mrs. Barfield told Esther where was the pantry, the kitchen, and the larder. Esther answered that she remembered quite well, and it seemed to her not a little strange that she should know these things. Mrs. Barfield said-- "So you haven't forgotten Woodview, Esther?" "No, ma'am. It seems like yesterday.... But I'm afraid the damp has got into the kitchen, ma'am, the range is that neglected----" "Ah, Woodview isn't what it was." Mrs. Barfield told how she had buried her husband in the old village church. She had taken her daughter to Egypt; she had dwindled there till there was little more than a skeleton to lay in the grave. "Yes, ma'am, I know how it takes them, inch by inch. My husband died of consumption." They sat talking for hours. One thing led to another and Esther gradually told Mrs. Barfield the story of her life from the day they bade each other good-bye in the room they were now sitting in. "It is quite a romance, Esther." "It was a hard fight, and it isn't over yet, ma'am. It won't be over until I see him settled in some regular work. I hope I shall live to see him settled."