He lifted his eyes abruptly to hers, dark eyes that seemed to her to hold a curious protest. “And you’ve found it worth while?” he said. She countered the question. “Have you?” He shook his head. “I didn’t say I’d done it.” “But you know what it feels like,” she said. He smiled at that. “You are very shrewd. Well, I have done it. But I don’t see any results—any decent results. I never shall see any.” “Does one ever really get results before the work is done?” said Frances. “I don’t know.” He dropped his eyes again moodily, and she found her own resting upon the silvery gleam of his bent head. “Life can be pretty damnable,” he said, “most particularly to those who have a sense of duty.” “It is more damnable if we rebel,” said Frances quietly. “You speak as one who knows,” he said. “Yes. I do know.” She uttered the words with conviction. “I have been a rebel. But that is over. I am going back now to work in the furrows—if a place can be found for me.” He frowned at her words. “Those infernal furrows! We plough our very souls into the soil! And to what end? Of what use?” “So you are a rebel too!” said Frances, with the suspicion of a smile. He threw her his sudden, challenging look, and she thought he was angry. But in a moment, sombrely, with eyes downcast, he made answer. “Yes, I am a rebel too.” There fell a silence between them that was curiously sympathetic. Frances reflected later that it was that silence that banished all her former embarrassment. She knew when he spoke again that it would not be as a stranger. Somehow they had ceased to be strangers. He looked up at her again at length. “Miss Thorold, I want to ask you something, and I don’t know how to put it. I’ve lived among clods too long to express myself with much delicacy. Will you make allowances for that?” She met his look with frankness. “You do not need to ask me that,” she said. “Thank you.” His eyes held hers with a certain mastery notwithstanding the humility of his address. “I have no intention of being offensive, I assure you. But I know—I can’t help knowing—that you have come through a pretty bad passage lately. I don’t want to ask anything about it. I only want to lend a hand to help you back to firm ground. Will you let me do this?” “I have already accepted too much from you,” she said. His look hardened. “I know. So you think. But you only see one point of view. I want you to realize that there is another. And if you leave Tetherstones now, well, you won’t have done all you might towards lessening what I believe you regard as an obligation.” “What do you mean?” she said. “I thought you wanted me to go.” “You thought wrong,” he returned with finality. “There is room for you here, and no reason whatever why you should go back to old Mrs. Trehearn, who is utterly unfit to look after you. Square says it would be madness. I beg you will not contemplate such a thing for a moment.”