“And what are you pleased to want with me, sir?” she asked respectfully, after the short silence which had followed Tregenna’s exclamation. “Well, I want to know, in the first place, what you are doing here?” “Sure, sir, there’s no harm in my taking a place as housemaid, now I’m turned out of my mother’s home by your pryings of last night.” “’Tis rather a bad thing for the squire and his lady,” said Tregenna, dryly, “to be harboring any of your kin, Ann, more especially after my discovery in the coach-house this morning!” “I am not here, sir, as a smuggler, but as a homeless farmer’s daughter,” returned Ann, in the same modest, even tone. “I believe I am reckoned worth my salt with a broom in my hand, as well as in the dairy.” “Nay, nay, ’tis not for your services with mop and churn they take you in, Ann, I know that,” said Tregenna. “You would have done best to keep out of my way a few days, after your doings of last night. ’Tis not your fault your rascally crew did not make an end to me, when you sent them in pursuit of me, as you did!” “Nay, sir, if I did,” answered Ann, with a sudden change to a soft voice and a pleading manner which had in it something strangely attractive, by reason of its unexpectedness, “’twas done in the heat of unreasoning passion, and without a thought of what grave consequences it might bring upon you. If they had really harmed you, by my troth I would never have spoke to one of them again.” “A very fair explanation, to be sure!” said Tregenna, dryly. “But ’twas well I had the luck to meet with a woman more womanly, to counteract the effects of your solicitude on my account.” “You mean Miss Joan,” said Ann, in a very quiet tone, as she played with the corner of her apron, keeping her eyes fixed upon it all the time. “Whom should I mean but that most sweet woman?” cried Tregenna, with the more enthusiasm that Ann was evidently displeased by his praise of the lady. “Had it not been for her goodness, I should most surely have been murdered last night, either by you or some one of your villainous confederates.” “Nay, nay, sir, you would not,” returned Ann, earnestly. “They would not have dared, I say, not one of them, to do a hurt to one in whom—in whom”—her voice faltered a little, and she looked down, bending her head, so that he could not see her face—“in whom I had an interest!” “An interest! Ay, truly, an interest so strong that, at first sight of me, you did show it at once by presenting a pistol at my head!” Ann suddenly raised her head, and looked into his face with a steadfast earnestness which could not but arrest his attention. In her gray eyes there was a strange light, in her whole manner a softness, both new and surprising. Even her voice seemed to have lost every trace of robust peasant harshness, and to have become tender and melting. “Sir, sir, you don’t understand! How can I make you understand?” cried she passionately.