So, as silent as the dead, they walked on side by side through the crowded streets, with the groups of rough factory hands, of grinders, of lassies with shawls round their heads, extending far over the road. A drizzling rain had begun to fall, and the stones of the streets were slimy, slippery and black. Claire went straight on through the crowds, threading her way deftly enough, but mechanically, and without turning her head. Bram following always. A vivid remembrance flashed into his mind of the previous occasion on which he had followed her, when Mr. Cornthwaite had told him to see her home from Holme Park, and she had dashed out of the house like an arrow to escape the infliction. Unconscious of his proximity she had been then; unconscious she seemed to be now. When she reached the hill near the summit of which the farmhouse stood, however, her strength seemed suddenly to desert her; the slight, over-taxed frame became momentarily unequal to its task, and she staggered against the stone wall which fenced the field she had to pass through. Then Bram came up, and, after standing beside her a few moments without speaking, and without eliciting a word from her, he drew her hand through his arm, and led her onwards up the hill. It was now dark, with the pitchy blackness of a wet, moonless night. The ground was slippery with rain, and the ascent would have been toilsome in the extreme to the girl’s weary little body but for Bram’s timely help. So tired was she that before they reached the farmhouse gates Bram put his arm round her waist, and more than half-carried her without a word of protest. There was no light in the front of the farmhouse; but when they got to the gate of the farmyard, through which it was Claire’s custom to enter, they saw a light in the kitchen window; and when they opened the door Joan jumped up from a seat near the big deal table. “Eh, Miss Claire, but Ah thowt ye was lost!” cried she. Then at once realizing that something untoward had happened, she glanced at Bram, who shook his head to intimate that she had better ask no questions. “Where’s my father?” asked Claire at once, drawing her arm away from that of Bram, and stopping short in the middle of the floor at the same time. “He’s gone oop to t’ Park,” said Joan, with a look at Bram as much as to say there was no help for it, and the truth must come out. Claire, sinking on the nearest chair, uttered a short, hollow laugh. Joan, who had been waiting with her bonnet on for Claire’s return, hardly knew what to do. She saw that the young girl was ill and desperately tired, and, on the other hand, she was anxious to get back to her own good-man and to her little ones. In her perplexity she looked at Bram, the faithful friend, whom she was heartily glad to see admitted again.