"My father offended him--not so very long ago, either," she answered. "Last year--I'll tell you it all, plainly--Mr. Mallalieu began coming to our cottage at times. First he came to see my father about killing the rats which had got into his out-buildings. Then he made excuses--he used to come, any way--at night. He began to come when my father was out, as he often was. He would sit down and smoke and talk. I didn't like it--I don't like him. Then he used to meet me in the wood in the Shawl, as I came home from the Northrops'. I complained to my father about it and one night my father came in and found him here. My father, Mr. Brereton, is a very queer man and a very plain-spoken man. He told Mr. Mallalieu that neither of us desired his company and told him to go away. And Mr. Mallalieu lost his temper and said angry things." "And your father?" said Brereton. "Did he lose his temper, too?" "No!" replied Avice. "He has a temper--but he kept it that night. He never spoke to Mr. Mallalieu in return. He let him say his say--until he'd got across the threshold, and then he just shut the door on him. But--I know how angry Mr. Mallalieu was." Brereton stood silently considering matters for a moment. Then he pointed to the light in the window beneath them, and moved towards it. "I'm glad you told me that," he said. "It may account for something that's puzzled me a great deal--I must think it out. But at present--is that the old woman's lamp?" Avice led the way down to the hollow by a narrow path which took them into a little stone-walled enclosure where a single Scotch fir-tree stood sentinel over a typical moorland homestead of the smaller sort--a one-storied house of rough stone, the roof of which was secured from storm and tempest by great boulders slung on stout ropes, and having built on to it an equally rough shelter for some small stock of cows and sheep. Out of a sheer habit of reflection on things newly seen, Brereton could not avoid wondering what life was like, lived in this solitude, and in such a perfect hermitage--but his speculations were cut short by the opening of the door set deep within the whitewashed porch. An old woman, much bent by age, looked out upon him and Avice, holding a small lamp so that its light fell on their faces. "Come your ways in, joy!" she said hospitably. "I was expecting you'd come up tonight: I knew you'd want to have a word with me as soon as you could. Come in and sit you down by the fire--it's coldish o' nights, to be sure, and there's frost in the air. "This gentleman may come in, too, mayn't he, Mrs. Hamthwaite?" asked Avice as she and Brereton stepped within the porch. "He's the lawyer-gentleman who's defending my father--you won't mind speaking before him, will you?" "Neither before him, nor behind him, nor yet to him," answered Mrs. Hamthwaite with a chuckle. "I've talked to lawyers afore today, many's the time! Come your ways in, sir--sit you down."