She was not at the wash-tub, as the old lady had said; but on her knees, scouring a step that led to a side-door, her drugget gown pinned up about her. She raised her head as he appeared, and met his gaze defiantly, her face flushing red with shame or some kindred feeling. He was struck by a strange likeness between her hard look and the frown with which the old woman at the door had received him; and this, or something in the misfit of her gown, or the glimpse he had of a stocking grotesquely fine in comparison of the stuff from which it peeped--or perhaps the cleanliness of the step she was scouring, since he seemed to see everything without looking at it--put an idea into his head. He checked the exclamation that sprang to his lips; and as she rose to her feet he saluted her with an easy smile. 'I have found you, child,' he said. 'Did you think you had hidden yourself?' She met his gaze sullenly. 'You have found me to no purpose,' she said. Her tone matched her look. The look and the words together awoke an odd pang in his heart. He had seen her arch, pitiful, wrathful, contemptuous, even kind; but never sullen. The new mood gave him the measure of her heart; but his tone lost nothing of its airiness. 'I hope not,' he said, 'for we think you have behaved vastly well in the matter, child. Remarkably well! And that, let me tell you, is not only my own sentiment, but the opinion of my friends who perfectly approve of the arrangement I have come to propose. You may accept it, therefore, without the least scruple.' 'Arrangement?' she muttered. Her cheeks, darkly red a moment before, began to fade. 'Yes,' he said. 'I hope you will think it not ungenerous. It will rid you of the need to do this--sort of thing, and put you--put you in a comfortable position. Of course, you know,' he continued in a tone of patronage, under which her heart burned if her cheeks did not, 'that a good deal of water has run under the bridge since we talked in the garden at Marlborough? That things are changed.' Her eyelids quivered under the cruel stroke. But her only answer was, 'They are.' Yet she wondered how and why; for if she had thought herself an heiress, he had not--then. 'You admit it, I am sure?' he persisted. 'Yes,' she answered resolutely. 'And that to--to resume, in fact, the old terms would be--impossible,' 'Quite impossible.' Her tone was as hard as his was easy. 'I thought so,' Sir George continued complacently. 'Still, I could not, of course, leave you here, child. As I have said, my friends think that something should be done for you; and I am only too happy to do it. I have consulted them, and we have talked the matter over. By the way,' with a look round, 'perhaps your mother should be here--Mrs. Masterson, I mean? Is she in the house?'