She felt a sudden rush of confused emotion. A love for her aunt, desire to help her, and at the same time shrinking as though she saw the whole house which had been, from the first, unhappy to her was now diseased and evil and rotten. The hot life in her body told her against her moral will that she must escape, and her soul, moving in her and speaking to her, told her that now, more than ever, she must stay. "Oh, poor, poor Aunt Anne," she said again. He moved and put his arm around her. He had meant it simply as a movement of sympathy and protection, but when he felt the warmth of her body against his, when he realised how she went to him at once with the confidence and simplicity of a child, when he felt the hot irregular beat of her heart, his own heart leapt, his arm was strengthened like a barrier of iron against the world. He had one moment of desperate resistance, a voice of protest calling to him far, far away. His hand touched her neck; he raised her face to his and kissed her, once gently, kindly, then, passionately again and again. She shivered a little, as though surrendering something to him, then lay quite still in his arms. "Maggie! Maggie!" he whispered. Then she raised her head and herself kissed him. There was a noise on the door. They separated; the door opened and in the sudden light a figure was visible holding a glass. For a blind instant Maggie, returning from her other world, thought it the figure of Mr. Palmer of Rugeley. It was, of course, Uncle Mathew. CHAPTER IV MR. CRASHAW Uncle Mathew saw Maggie back to her door, kissed her and left her. On their way home he did not once mention Martin Warlock to her. He left her as he heard the bolt turn in the door, hurrying away as though he did not want to be seen. Maggie went in to find old Martha with her crabbed face watching her sourly. But she did not care, nothing could touch her now. Even the old woman, cross with waiting by the fading kitchen fire, noticed the light in the girl's eyes. She had always thought the girl hard and ungracious, but now that face was soft, and the mouth smiling over its secret thoughts, and the eyes sleepy with happiness. Maggie could have said: "I'm wild with joy, Martha. I know what love is. I had never thought that it could be like this. Be kind to me because it's the greatest night of my life." Martha said: "There's some milk hotted for you, Miss, and some biscuits. There on the table by the stairs." "Oh, I don't want anything, Martha, thank you!" "Your aunt said you was to have it." Maggie drank it down, Martha watching her. Then she went upstairs softly, as though her joy might awaken the whole house. She lay wide-eyed on her bed for hours, then fell into a heavy sleep, deep, without dreams.