“She is a dear old thing and you can always get round her. I shall get up and go down and stand with my back to the light and keep my head low, and hope that no one will notice; then you must get nurse to let us have a holiday and take our dinner with us on to the hills. We can stay away till it is dark and then no one will see. I am ever so much better to-day and shall be all right to-morrow. We need only go a little way and it is a beautiful day, and I can lie in the sunshine. I wonder how poor Master Menstrie is,” she went on. “I am afraid that he will take a great deal longer to get well than I shall. You will of course look after him.” Aline’s plan succeeded beyond expectation. Master Mowbray was in a hurry, as he wanted to ride over to Appleby for a few days and Nurse was busy with preparations. So Aline spent the long summer days on the moors watching the great white clouds roll over the hills and thinking of all that had happened in the last few days and the new responsibilities that had fallen upon her. It was clear that it would be a difficult matter to feed their guest, particularly as she was determined not to take food from the house. Perhaps it was true as Audry said, that people had no right to demand answers to any question that they might choose to ask; but certainly that did not justify one in taking what did not belong to one. She was just at the age when the intelligence begins to arouse itself and face the great problems of life and this was only one of the questions that stirred her young mind. There was also the matter of the heretics and again Audry had in her frank direct way supplied the answer of fair play and common sense. Aline made up her mind that she would ask Master Menstrie about some of these things; at least, as Audry had said, there could be no harm in hearing both sides and she must judge for herself. Audry went back after a while to see Master Menstrie; and Aline, when she had been out on the moor for a long time, returned to the Hall as the afternoon sun was getting low. Before going in, she sat down by the moat and looked across at the grey pile. The water seemed to be shallow at that point as though the bank had slipped in and yellow irises were growing at the edge. Although the bulk of the building was little more than a hundred years old, except the early pele tower that had been built into the structure, time had laid its fingers upon it and it looked very mellow in the afternoon sun. The stone shingles of the roof were covered with golden lichen, while, behind the parapet of the little old tower, a piece of ivy had taken root and hung down through one of the crenellations trailing a splash of green over the grey wall. There was a stern beauty about it and the long line of narrow oilettes in the granary added to the somewhat fortress-like appearance. As she sat there she saw a small figure approaching; it was Joan.