“’Tis well, then. I’ll return.” She took a step towards the door, and then stopped. There was a sudden change to wistfulness in her tone which touched Tregenna to the quick when he heard her next words, “Ann, should he be brought hither: should your kinsmen find him and bring him to you, as I know they would do, you’ll—you’ll spare him, you’ll do him no hurt, for my sake, Ann, for the sake of what I have done for you?” Again there was a pause. Then Ann answered, with a mocking laugh— “Oh, he shall not be treated worse than his deserts, I’ll warrant you!” There was a bitterness in her tone which appalled both her hearers. Joan stepped hurriedly back into the room, and cried, in a ringing voice— “Then, troth, Ann, I will not leave this roof till your friends have come back!” “You had better go, Miss Joan,” retorted Ann, dryly. “My mates, and specially after a raid, are no companions for a gentlewoman.” “Nor are they to be trusted in their treatment of a gentleman. So, faith, Ann, I will stay till I learn what has become of Lieutenant Tregenna.” The girls’ unseen hearer could contain himself no longer. He had at first thought that it would be safer for Joan to return to her home in ignorance of his presence in the farmhouse. But on hearing her express this brave resolution, he felt that there was nothing for it but to make his presence known to her. He, therefore, dealt three sounding blows on the trap-door above his head with one of his pistols. The weight of the door was so great, especially as Ann was still standing on it, that it did not move. But the noise he made arrested Joan’s attention, and aroused her suspicion. “What’s that?” she cried, as she came nearer to Ann. The blows were repeated, and then Tregenna’s voice, muffled but recognizable, reached her ears: “Lift up this door, Mistress Ann. Let me out, or I’ll put a bullet through it.” And as he spoke, he succeeded in raising the trap-door a couple of inches, and in thrusting the muzzle of his pistol through the aperture. Ann with a muttered oath, raised the trap-door, and flung it back upon the settle. “Out with you, then!” cried she, defiantly, as she planted herself a foot or so away from the chasm thus made, and stared down upon him sullenly. “Out with you, and off with you! And may the devil catch your heels!” Thus adjured, Tregenna proceeded to pile up the bales of silk in order to reach the level of the kitchen floor. Joan, who was very white, and who had never uttered a sound since hearing his voice, came forward to help him. As she held out her firm white hand, he grasped it in his with a warm, strong pressure, which brought the red blood back to her face. The next moment they were standing side by side, and face to face with Ann, whose gray eyes flashed in diabolical anger as she looked at them.