He was still hopeful when he saw Josina’s figure, muffled in a cloak and poke-bonnet, grow out of the mist before him. The girl was waiting for him on the farther side of the half-way stile, which had been their trysting place from childhood; and what slight doubt he had felt as to her willingness to help him died away. He whistled a little louder, and swung his stick more carelessly, and he spoke before he came up to her. “Hallo, Jos!” he cried cheerfully. “You’re before me. But I knew that I could count on you, if I could count on any one. I only came from London last night, and”—his stick over his shoulder, and his head thrown back—“I knew the best thing I could do was to see you and get your help. Why?” In spite of himself his voice fell a tone. “What’s the matter?” “Oh, Arthur!” she said. That was all, but the two words completed what her look had begun. His eyes dropped. “How could you? How would you do it?” “Why—why, surely you’re not going to turn against me?” he exclaimed. “And he was blind! Blind! And he trusted you. He trusted you, Arthur.” “The devil!” roughly—for how could he meet this save by bluster? “If we’re going to talk like that—but you don’t understand, Jos. It was business, and you don’t understand, I tell you. Business, Jos.” “He does.” Two words only, but they rang a knell in his ears. They gripped him in the moment of his swagger, left him bare before her, a culprit, dumb. “He has felt it terribly! Terribly,” she continued. “He was blind, and you deceived him. Whom can he trust now, Arthur?” He strove to rally his confidence. He could not meet her gaze, but he tapped a rail of the stile with his stick. “Oh, but that’s nonsense!” he said. “Nonsense! But, of course, if you are against me, if you are not going to help me——” “How can I help you? He will not hear your name.” “I can tell you how—quite easily, if you will let me explain?” She shook her head. “But you can. If you are willing, that is. Of course, if you are not——” “What can I do? He knows all.” “You can remind him of what I did for him,” he answered eagerly. “I saved his life. He would not be alive now but for me. You can tell him that. Remind him of that, Jos. Tell him that sometime after dinner, when he is in a good humor. He owes his life to me, and that’s not a small thing—is it? Even he must see that he owes me something. What’s a paltry thousand or two thousand? And I only borrowed them; he won’t lose a penny by it—not a penny!” earnestly. “What’s that in return for a man’s life? He must know——”