“I have seen John Jago,” she said. “He has been hinting at something which he says happened under your bedroom window this morning. When I begged him to explain himself, he only answered, ‘Ask Mr. Lefrank; I must be off to Narrabee.’ What does it mean? Tell me right away, sir! I’m out of temper, and I can’t wait!” Except that I made the best instead of the worst of it, I told her what had happened under my window as plainly as I have told it here. She put down the knife that she was cleaning, and folded her hands before her, thinking. “I wish I had never given John Jago that meeting,” she said. “When a man asks anything of a woman, the woman, I find, mostly repents it if she says ‘Yes.’” She made that quaint reflection with a very troubled brow. The moonlight meeting had left some unwelcome remembrances in her mind. I saw that as plainly as I saw Naomi herself. What had John Jago said to her? I put the question with all needful delicacy, making my apologies beforehand. “I should like to tell _you_,” she began, with a strong emphasis on the last word. There she stopped. She turned pale; then suddenly flushed again to the deepest red. She took up the knife once more, and went on cleaning it as industriously as ever. “I mustn’t tell you,” she resumed, with her head down over the knife. “I have promised not to tell anybody. That’s the truth. Forget all about it, sir, as soon as you can. Hush! here’s the spy who saw us last night on the walk and who told Silas!” Dreary Miss Meadowcroft opened the kitchen door. She carried an ostentatiously large Prayer-Book; and she looked at Naomi as only a jealous woman of middle age _can_ look at a younger and prettier woman than herself. “Prayers, Miss Colebrook,” she said in her sourest manner. She paused, and noticed me standing under the window. “Prayers, Mr. Lefrank,” she added, with a look of devout pity, directed exclusively to my address. “We will follow you directly, Miss Meadowcroft,” said Naomi. “I have no desire to intrude on your secrets, Miss Colebrook.” With that acrid answer, our priestess took herself and her Prayer-Book out of the kitchen. I joined Naomi, entering the room by the garden door. She met me eagerly. “I am not quite easy about something,” she said. “Did you tell me that you left Ambrose and Silas together?” “Yes.” “Suppose Silas tells Ambrose of what happened this morning?” The same idea, as I have already mentioned, had occurred to my mind. I did my best to reassure Naomi. “Mr. Jago is out of the way,” I replied. “You and I can easily put things right in his absence.” She took my arm. “Come in to prayers,” she said. “Ambrose will be there, and I shall find an opportunity of speaking to him.”