The description that Frances had given of the lodging she had found for herself in that little Devon village on the edge of the moors gave a very fair impression of the hospitality she enjoyed. The place was scrupulously clean, and, beyond this, quite comfortless. The fare was cottage fare of the very plainest. Her hostess—a stiff-limbed old creature, toothless, ungracious—was content to bestow upon her lodger the bare necessaries of life and no more. “I can boil you up some hot water to wash in, but it’ll be an extra,” expressed her general attitude towards all things. And Frances, being unable to afford the luxury here implied, contented herself with the sweet, soft moorland water as it came from the pump at the cottage-door. In fact, she very often pumped her own in preference to accepting the grumbling ministrations of the old woman. But she had been happy during that fortnight of enforced rest after leaving the Palace. The solitude and the boundless leisure of her days had brought healing to her tired soul. She was beginning to feel equipped to face the world afresh. She was looking forward to taking up secretarial work again of an infinitely more congenial character. Her first instinctive hesitation was past. She was prepared to take refuge once more in professional absorption, resolutely banishing all misgivings regarding the man who had hidden with her in the Bishop’s garden and had taken his stand beside her in the Bishop’s presence. They had been cast forth,—she thought of it sometimes still with the tremor of a smile—they had been driven out as Adam and Eve, and neither of them would ever enter that garden again. Their intercourse since that night had been of the very briefest. Rotherby had obtained from her an address by which he could find her at any time. His attitude had been as business-like as her own, and she had been reassured. She had agreed to take a three weeks’ holiday before entering upon her new duties, and now had come this. He had followed her to tell her that he would not now need her until the winter.