She clenched her hands to check the swift leap of her heart. “I don’t think you have any right—to press me like this,” she said, her voice very low. “No right whatever,” he agreed, and in his quiet rejoinder she caught an unexpected note of relief. “I knew you had had a fright, and the Stones have a bad name hereabouts. I wondered what bogey had frightened you. But apparently it wasn’t a bogey this time.” He smiled a little with the words and she felt the tension relax. She lifted her eyes and met a gleam of friendliness in his. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t a bogey.” “Perhaps you don’t believe in them,” said Arthur Dermot. She hesitated, remembering the eyes that had glared at her through the nut-trees, and then wondering within herself if they had been a dream. He went on with scarcely a pause. “Whether you do or not, I shouldn’t go to the Stones again in the dark if I were you. It’s not a healthy spot.” “But the child goes!” she said in surprise. “The child!” He lifted his brows. “The child is different,” he said briefly. “The child goes everywhere.” His tone did not invite comment. She wondered and held her peace. After a moment he went on, his jaw set in the fighting fashion she had come to associate with him. “All this is beside the point, though you’ve satisfied me in one particular. Now, Miss Thorold, to return to the charge! Why must you go from here before you are fit?” “I think you know why,” she said. “But if you have no one to go to—” he said. “I am going to work,” said Frances, with decision. “What is your work?” he asked. She answered him without reserve, for his manner had undergone a change. “I am a typist. I have been secretary to the Bishop of Burminster.” “Burminster!” he repeated the name sharply. “What is his name?” “Dr. Rotherby.” “Ah!” She saw his face twist suddenly, as if at a spasm of pain. “That man!” He ground the words between his teeth. “Yes, that man! Do you know him?” She asked the question with a certain hesitation, but he answered it immediately. “I knew him once—before he came to Burminster. What is he like now? Did he treat you decently?” “He never treats anyone decently,” said Frances. “You quarrelled with him?” He looked at her sharply. “Yes. I quarrelled with him,” she answered with simplicity. “I think he is the hardest man I have ever met.” Arthur Dermot was silent. He picked up his cap and began to turn it in his hands, moodily meditative. “Well,” Frances said, after a moment, “that is a closed chapter now. I am looking out for another post.” “They are not very easy to find, are they?” he said. The indomitable courage that Montague Rotherby had admired in her sounded in her reply. “Of course they are not easy. That’s just the best of life. We’ve got to work for everything worth having.” “Some of us have to work for what isn’t,” he said. “Yes. I’ve done that too,” she answered.