"There's no harm in it," I persuasively said, sorry to see her so full of trouble. But she was as one who heard not. "No harm at all, Ketira. I dare answer for it that a score of lads and lasses are out. Why should we not walk in the moonlight as well as the sunlight? For my part, I should call it a shame to stay indoors on this glorious night." "An enemy, an enemy! A grand gentleman, who will leave her to pine her heart away! What kind of man is he, that Hyde Stockhausen?" she continued, turning to me fiercely. "Kind of man? A pleasant one. I have not heard any ill of him." "Rich?" "No. Perhaps he will be rich some time. He makes bricks, you know, now. That is, he superintends the men." "Yes, I know," she answered: and I don't suppose there was much connected with Hyde she did not know. Looking this way, looking that, she at length began to walk, slowly and painfully, towards Hyde's gate. The thought had crossed me--why did she not take Kettie away on one of their long expeditions, if she dreaded him so much. But the rheumatism lay upon her still too heavily. Flinging open the gate, she went across the garden, not making for the proper entrance, but for a lighted room, whose French-window stood open to the ground. Hyde was there, just sitting down to supper. "Come in with me," she said, turning her head round to beckon me on. But I did not choose to go in. It was no affair of mine that I should beard Hyde in his den. Very astonished indeed must he have been, when she glided in at the window, and stood before him. I saw him rise from his chair; I saw the astounded look of old Deborah Preen when she came in with his supper ale in a jug. What they said to one another, I know not. I did not wish to listen: though it was only natural I should stay to see the play out. Just as natural as it was for Preen to come stealing round through the kidney beans to the front-garden, an anxious look on her face. "What does that old gipsy woman want with the young master, Mr. Ludlow? Is he having his fortune told?" "I shouldn't wonder. Wish some good genius would tell mine!" The interview seemed to have been short and sharp. Ketira was coming out again. Hyde followed her to the window. Both were talking at once, and the tail of the dispute reached our ears. "I repeat to you that you are totally mistaken," Hyde was saying. "I have no 'designs,' as you put it, on your daughter, good or bad; no design whatever. She is perfectly free to go her own way, for me. My good woman, you have no cause to adjure me in that solemn manner. Sacred? 'Under Heaven's protection?' Well, so she may be. I hope she is. Why should I wish to hinder it? I don't wish to, I don't intend to. You need not glare so." Ketira, outside the window now, turned and faced him, her great eyes fixed on him, her hand raised in menace.