"I didn't know you were here--" "Don't apologize," he said, good-naturedly. "I'm going to stay a fortnight at least, and you'll see me very often. Are you and your mother here alone?" "There is Hannah--" "Oh yes, the sharp-faced woman who let me in, I suppose? She keeps an eye upon you. I saw her in the garden watching your approach with a great deal of anxiety and not much approval." The fly had been waiting in the lane instead of by the porch. He got in before he held out his hand. "Sir George, I want to tell you--" she began, and stopped, for it was so difficult. "I know," and he laughed again. "By-the-way, I dare say you'll have Carringford over next week; he's going to Hindhead; he said he should come and see you, and look me up on the way. Good-bye," and in a moment he had started. She stood watching him almost in despair. Suppose he told Tom Carringford about Mr. Garratt! Oh, but when he came again--he said just now that he should come often--she would explain. Only it was such a difficult thing to explain, it wanted so much courage, and why should it matter to Mr. Carringford? Perhaps, too, it would be better to leave it alone, and he would forget about Mr. Garratt; besides, Mr. Walford, the clergyman, would be sure to call on Sir George, and if by any chance he mentioned Woodside Farm he would probably tell him that Mr. Garratt was walking out with Hannah--he was always at church with her on Sunday mornings. She remembered joyfully that Sir George would see them there together, and in a little place like Chidhurst everything was known and talked about. "Good Heavens! how lovely she is," Sir George thought as he drove away, "and what a pity that she should be left to those two women!" For he and Mrs. Vincent had spent an awkward ten minutes, not knowing in the least what to say to each other, and he had naturally come to the conclusion that she was a handsome but quite ordinary woman of her class. "And then the young tradesman, with the crisp, curling hair showing under the brim of his bowler hat, and the look of a bounder. Vincent ought to be shot for leaving her to him." It was no business of his, of course, but it vexed him so much that he felt as if he could not bring himself to pay another visit to the farm. XIII