He was more struck than ever as he approached the farmyard gate with a fact which had been patent to all eyes of late. The tenants of Duke’s Farm had fallen on evil days. Everything about the place betrayed the fact that a guiding hand was wanting; while Bram had kept an eye on the farm bailiff things had gone pretty smoothly, fences had been repaired, the stock had been well looked after. Now there were signs of neglect upon everything. The wheat was still unstacked; the thatch at one end of the big barn was broken and defective; a couple of pigs had strayed from the farmyard into the garden, and were rooting up whatever took their fancy. Bram leaned on the gate, and looked sorrowfully around. Was it by chance that the back door opened, and Joan, the good-humored Yorkshire servant, peeped out? She looked at him for a few minutes very steadily, and then she beckoned him with a brawny arm. He came across the yard at once. “Look here, mister,” said she in her broadly familiar manner, “what have ye been away so long for? Do ye think there’s nought to be done here now? Or have ye grown too grand for us poor folks?” He laughed rather bitterly. “No, Joan, I’ve only kept away because I’m not wanted.” “Hark to him!” she cried ironically, as she planted her hands on her hips, and glanced up at him with a shrewd look in her gray-green clever eyes. “He wants to be pressed now, when he used to be glad enoof to sneak in and take his chance of a welcome! Well, Ah could tell a tale if Ah liked, and put the poor, modest fellow at his ease, that Ah could!” Bram’s face flushed. “Do you mean she wants me?” he asked so simply that Joan burst into a good-humored laugh. “Go ye in and see,” said she with a stupendous nod. “And if ye get the chuck aht, blame it on to me!” Bram took the hint, and went in. Joan followed, and pointed to a chair by the table, where Claire sat bending over some work by the light of a candle. The evening was a gray one, and the light was already dim in the big farm kitchen. “Here’s a friend coom to see ye who doan’t coom so often as he might,” cried Joan, following close on the visitor’s heels. Claire was looking up with eyes in which Bram, with a pang, noted a new look of fear and dismay. For the first time within his recent memory she did not seem glad to see him. He stopped. “I’ve only come, Miss Claire,” said he in a very modest voice, “to tell you I’m going to London to-morrow on business for the firm. I shall be away ten days or a fortnight; and I came to know whether there was anything I could do for you, either before I go or while I’m there. But if there’s nothing, or if I’m in the way----” “You’re never in anybody’s way, Mr. Elshaw,” said she quite cordially, but without the hearty ring there used to be in her welcome. “Please, sit down.” She offered him a chair, and he took it, while Joan, round about whose wide mouth a malicious smile was playing, disappeared into her own precincts of scullery and back-kitchen.