There came the click of the garden-gate, and she started with a sharp jerk of every pulse. Again, before she could check it the hot colour rushed upwards to her face and temples. She stood, strangely tense, listening. He came up the path with his easy saunter. She knew it for the step of a man of the world. None of the village men walked thus—with this particular species of leisurely decision, unhurried assurance. He strolled between the line of hollyhocks and sunflowers and spied her by the window. “Ah! Hullo! May I come in this way?” He stepped over the low sill into the room. It was growing dusk. The air was extraordinarily sweet. “There’s a mist on the moors to-night,” he said. “Can you smell it?” “Yes,” said Frances. She gave him no word of greeting. Somehow the occasion was too unconventional for that. Or was it merely the manner of his entrance—the supreme confidence of his intimacy with her—that made conventional things impossible? He entered her presence without parley, because—obviously—he knew she would be glad to see him. The breath caught oddly in her throat. Was she glad? The tension of her limbs passed, but she was aware of it still mentally,—a curious constraint from which she could not break free. She laid her sketches before him almost without words. He took them and looked at them one after another with obvious interest. “You’ve got the atmosphere!” he said. “And the charm! They’re like yourself, Miss Thorold. No, it isn’t idle flattery. It’s there, but one can’t tell where it lies. Ah, what’s this?” He was looking at the last of the pictures with an even closer interest. “That is the little blind child at Tetherstones,” she said. “It is only an impression—not good at all. I couldn’t get the appeal of her—only the prettiness. It isn’t even finished.” “What, the child you went to in the lane this morning? But this is clever. You must finish this. You’ve got her on the stepping-stones too. She doesn’t cross those alone surely!” “Oh, yes, she goes everywhere, poor mite. She is just seven and wonderfully brave. Sure-footed, too! She wanders about quite alone.” “Poor kid!” Rotherby laid the sketch aside and turned to her. “Miss Thorold, I’ve come for a talk—a real talk. Don’t freeze me!” She smiled almost in spite of herself, and the thought came to her that he must have had a very winning personality as a boy. Gleams of the boy still shone out now and again as it were between the joints of his manhood’s armour. “Sit down!” she said. “Sit down and talk!” But Rotherby would not sit. He began to pace the narrow room restlessly, impatiently. “You accused me of letting you down this morning,” he said, “and I protest against that. It wasn’t fair. You’ve got a wrong impression of me.” “I!” said Frances. “Yes, you!” He met her surprise with a certain ruthlessness. “I know it sounded like the other way round, but it wasn’t actually. In your heart you felt I’d played you a dirty trick—let you down. Own up! Didn’t you?”