As for Bram, he felt that if he tried to utter a single word he should choke. He could not understand or analyze his own feeling; he did not well know whether his faith in her innocence and purity remained intact. All he knew, all he felt, as he looked at the little creature who seemed so pitifully small and slight as she stood alone on the hillside, wrapt tightly in a long cloak, but shivering in the night air, was that his whole heart was sore for her, that he ached for pity and distress, that he did not know what he should say, what he could do, to comfort and console her. At last she seemed to take courage, and came a few steps nearer. “Mr. Elshaw!” “Yes, Miss Claire.” She started, and no wonder. For his voice was as much changed as were the sentiments he felt for her. [Illustration: An exclamation escaped his lips. She ran panting towards him.--_Page 86._] She came a little nearer still, with hesitating feet, before she spoke again. “Was that--wasn’t that my cousin, Christian Cornthwaite, who went away when he saw me?” It was Bram’s turn to start. So that was the reason of the sudden flight of Chris! He had seen and recognized the figure of Claire as she came up the hill behind Bram. “Yes, Miss Claire.” Another pause. She was near enough now to peer up into his face with some chance of discerning the expression he wore. It was one of anxiety, of tenderness. She drew back a little. “I--I heard him call--I heard a voice call out ‘Hallo!’” she explained, “and I jumped up, and looked out of the window, and I saw you, and I saw my cousin following you. And you would not answer him. But he still went on. And--and I was frightened; I thought something dreadful had happened, that you had quarrelled; so I got up and came up after you. And I saw----” She stopped. Bram said nothing. But he turned his head away, unable to look at her. Her voice, now that she spoke under the influence of some strong emotion, played upon his heartstrings like the wind upon an Æolian harp. He made a movement as if to bid her go on with her story. “I saw,” she added in a lower voice, “I saw you spring upon him as if you were going to knock him down. You had been quarrelling. I’m sure you had. And I was frightened. I screamed out, but you didn’t hear me, either of you; you were too full of what you were saying to each other. And it was about me; I know it was about me. Now, wasn’t it?” Bram was astonished. “What makes you think that, Miss Claire? Did you hear anything?” “Ah!” cried she quickly. “That’s a confession. It was about me you were quarreling. Can’t you tell me all about it at once?” But Bram did not dare. He moved restlessly from the one foot to the other, and suddenly said--