“Because, in the first place, she was Cornish. I’d noticed that her talk was different somehow from that of the folks about here--though she was as soft-spoken as any lady bred and born; but one day she was standing in my shop, with the children as she had care of, taking shelter from a storm--and a regular pelter it was too--and she stood looking out to sea through yonder half-glass door, which it were shut for the time being, and I made some remark about the unpleasantness of the weather, out of politeness like--for the young woman came very often to my shop for groceries, and with lodgers’ letters,--Mrs. Burfield takes lodgers, and so forth;--but she looked at me in a kind of absent way, and said ‘Oh, I like it! I like it!’ ‘You like the storm, Miss?’ I exclaimed; and then she answered all of a sudden, ‘Yes, I like to see it. This place doesn’t seem so strange to me to-day as it generally does. I have seen just such a storm as this from the moor on which my father’s house stands, and I could almost fancy I was at home in Cornwall.’” “And that’s how you found out she was a Cornish woman? I think you’ve about hit it, Mr. Sanders. I think the girl who talked to you about the storm must have been my cousin, Susan Tredethlyn.” “Her name _was_ Susan,” answered Mr. Sanders; “I’ve heard Mrs. Burfield’s children call her so in this very shop. She came to Coltonslough as governess to Mrs. Burfield’s young family.” “A governess!” said Francis, with some slight sense of relief. “She was a governess, then, and not a servant?” “Oh dear no! Though Coltonslough being a very small place, you see, sir, and most of the inhabitants being a good deal dependent upon lodgers, which gives a kind of fluctuating character to life, as you may say, sir, a governess in Coltonslough might not be looked upon exactly in the same light as elsewhere. Or, to put it plainer, sir, a governess in Coltonslough would _not_ be expected to be proud.” “Oh, I understand,” Mr. Tredethlyn answered, rather bitterly. “Yes, my cousin was a genteel drudge,--not so well paid, perhaps, as vulgar drudges, and rather harder worked.” “The young person was always genteel, sir, even to the extent of wearing gloves, which is not looked upon as indispensable in Coltonslough; but in the matter of going errands and opening the door, or carrying in a lodger’s tea-tray, at a push, she would _not_ be expected to be proud.” “And she left three years ago?” “She did, sir.” The postmaster looked very grave as he said this,--so grave that Francis Tredethlyn could not fail to perceive that something worse than he had yet heard remained to be told. He was not a man to diplomatize, nor yet to make any display of his emotion; but his breath came a little faster for a few moments, and then he asked abruptly,-- “How did she leave?” Mr. Sanders hesitated a little, and then said, with some embarrassment,--