“Why, yes, sir. I was under housemaid, and right through upper-housemaid to housekeeper with them in the old gentleman’s and lady’s time. Mr. Biron’s told you about me, no doubt, sir,” she added, with complacent belief that she was still fresh in that gentleman’s mind. “And I don’t suppose he had many a good word for me. I never did like the idea of his being half-French. I was always afraid it would turn out badly, always. I suppose he thought of me at once when he wanted his daughter back, sir?” Bram thought this suggestion would do very well as an explanation of his own appearance at the cottage, so he did not contradict her. He asked if she knew where Claire had gone to. “Well, no, sir, I don’t. She ran upstairs, and put on her things all in a hurry, and went out at the back. I suppose she remembered something she’d forgotten this morning when she went out to do my little bit of marketing for me. And yet--no--she’d have gone out the front way for that.” The old woman stared at the young man with wakening intelligence. She perceived some signs of agitation in him. “Maybe she saw you through the window, sir, and didn’t want to speak to you,” she suggested shrewdly. Bram did not contradict her. “Where does the path at the back lead to?” he asked, “I must see her. I think it’s very likely, as you say, that she doesn’t want to; but she would never forgive herself if her father were to die, would she?” “Lord, no, sir. Well, she may have gone out that way and then turned to the left back into the town. Or she may--though I don’t think it’s likely--she may have gone on towards Little Scrutton. She’s fond of a walk to the old abbey, that runs down to the left past Sir Joseph’s plantation. But I should hardly think she’d go that far so late, and by herself too!” “Thanks. Well, if she’s gone that way I can catch her up, or meet her as she comes back,” said Bram. “Thank you. Good-evening.” He hid as well as he could the anxiety which was in his heart, and set off, passing, by the woman’s invitation, through the cottage kitchen, by the footpath across the fields. He was half-mad with fear lest Claire, in an access of shame, should have fled from the shelter she had found under the good woman’s roof, determined not to return to a hiding-place which had been discovered. It seemed clear to him that the old woman knew nothing but the fact that Theodore had sent his daughter away, and for one brief, splendid moment Bram asked himself whether that were indeed the whole truth, and the story of her flight with Christian an ugly nightmare, dishonoring only to the brains which had conceived it. But then, like a black pall, there descended on his passionate hopes the remembrance of Claire’s look when he last saw her at the farm; of the horror, the shame in her face; of her abrupt flight then; or her flight now. What other explanation could there be of all this? Was he not mad to entertain a hope in the face of overwhelming evidence?