As she spoke she fleetly shut her eyes, so that she could see neither the golden wheat-field nor the handsome face. At once the steep wall of the prison ran up, and above it, searing her eyes, was the blinding dome of sky. Beyond she saw the railway line, the dreary waste land, a solitary old cottage, a tethered goat; on the edge of the earth, meeting the sky, the bristling chimneys of the distant suburb beyond the Scrubbs. The prison! That chapter of her life was nearly ended. She knew that she was weak; knew that she would yield to Jethro. Already she almost felt as if that golden field of wheat half belonged to her. She would yield. Why not? It was so simple, so idle. How she had longed for rest, and more--for freedom! The heel of another woman had been very hard on her neck. Just to go back to London, pack her boxes, take a cab, bid her landlady farewell--and leave no trace. When _he_ came out from prison he would not find her--that was all. “I might stay--and see,” she said faintly, opening her gray eyes. “Very well. You want a situation; I offer you one. I pay you thirty-five pounds a year for gowns and things. That between ourselves. At the end of the year--we’ll see. To the world, to Gainah, you are my Cousin Pamela.” “I’d like to earn my thirty-five pounds,” she said sturdily. “Of course. You’ll make the place pretty, as young women can. You’ll entertain all your distant relations--the Turles and Crisps and Furlongers. You can write letters for me until I get about again. I’m like a log just now. Look here!” He rolled down the covering and showed his bandaged limb. “I got a fork run into my leg in the harvest field, and it turned to a nasty wound. But I shall be about again soon.” “That is all?” She breathed relief, and the glint of distaste in her eyes faded out. “That is all. You didn’t think I was a cripple?” “I didn’t know.” “You really do favor my Uncle John,” Jethro said, after a pause. “Do you mind--it will be your first duty--getting a leather case from that top, left-hand drawer? Yes, that’s it,” when she brought it back. “See! Here he is. Now, isn’t the mouth the same?” He held before her the faded likeness, taken on silver, of a young man in staid black clothes, and with straggling side whiskers. “Taken just before he ran away. Is it anything like your father?” She stared at the dim old portrait for a long time before she answered. Her eyes took in every detail--the doubled fist on a bulky book, the vapid smile, the too apparent watch-chain with its bunch of seals. “I can’t say,” she returned faintly at last. “This is a young man. Father was gray when I remember him. He married late in life. He had a white beard. But I think,” she held the portrait thoughtfully sideways, “that the mouth is something like. Father had a bare lip to the end of his days.”