"When I spoke," she said, "I did not understand at all what had happened--not at all. I was stunned and angry. I thought that if I was too near you, you might have spoken instead of doing as you did." Then with studied coldness and meeting his gaze fully, "It would have been a vile thing to have said--if I had understood." "Yes," he answered. "It would have been a vile thing, if you had understood; but you did not, and I realized that when I had time to think over it coolly." "Then at first," she put it to him, "it made you angry?" "Yes. I had run some risk, you know, and had had the luck to save your life." The interview ended here, and it was some time before they met again. But Murdoch heard of her often; so often indeed that she was kept pretty constantly before him. He heard of her from Haworth, from the Briarleys, from numberless sources indeed. It became her caprice to make a kind of study of the people around her and to find entertainment in it. When she drove through the streets of the little town, past the workmen's cottages, and the Works themselves, she was stared at and commented upon. Her beauty, her dress, her manners roused the beholders either to lavish or grudging acknowledgment. Dirty children sometimes followed her carriage, and on its stopping at any point a small crowd gathered about it. "She's been here again," shouted Granny Dixon one evening as Murdoch took a seat near her chair. "Who?" he asked. "Her. That lass o' Ffrench's--th' one I conna bide. She mak's out she's ta'en a fancy to our Janey. I dunnot believe her," at a louder pitch and with vigorous nods. "Tha nasty tempert owd body!" cried Mrs. Briarley _sotto voce_. "Get out wi' thee!" "What art tha sayin'?" demanded her guest. "Dunnot tell me tha wur sayin' nowt. I saw thee." "I--I wur sayin' it wur a bad day fur th' wash," faltered the criminal, "an' fur them as had rheumatiz. How's--how's thine, Misses?" "Tha'rt tellin' a lee," was the rejoinder. "Tha wert sayin' summat ill o' me. I caught thee at it." Then going back to the subject and turning to Murdoch: "I dunnot believe her! She cares nowt fur nowt at th' top o' th' earth but hersen. She set here to-day gettin' em to mak' foo's o' theersens because it happen't to suit her. She's getten nowt better to do an' she wants to pass th' toime--if theer's nowt else at th' back on it. She's Will Ffrench ower again. She conna mak' a foo' o' me." "He made foo' enow o' thee i' his day," commented Mrs. Briarley, cautiously. Granny Dixon favored her with a sharper glance than before. "Tha'rt sayin' summat ill again," she cried. "Howd thy tongue!" "Eh!" whimpered the poor woman. "A body dare na say theer soul's theer own when hoo's about--hoo's that sharp an' ill-farrant." A few minutes after, Briarley came in. Janey piloted him and he entered with a smile at once apologetic and encouraging. "He wur theer," said Janey. "But he had na had nowt."