“She’s getting old, sir, and she imagines things. You mustn’t pay any heed, Mr. Lancaster. It only worries Wolf if you do.” “Well, I must say you’re a happy family over here at present!” he grumbled, as they came down the shore. “I might as well have stopped away, for all the good I’ve done. You’ll be sorry for this, some day, Miss Francey!” “I’m sorry now!” she answered, with so much pathos and helpless appeal in her voice that he was silenced. Scrambling into the boat, he was rowed away across the now wide stretch of water. The first shot of the new battery burst from the sky as he reached the other side, and through the playing lightning he saw Francey Dockeray still on the bank, with the blackness of all doom around and above her. CHAPTER VI HAMER’S HUT Dandy Shaw looked round the Watters drawing-room with a little twist of the lips. She was perched on a high oak stool, with her feet on the rungs, and through the Chippendale mirror opposite she could see both her own figure and its setting. It was afternoon, and under the looped yellow silk blinds the sun pattered on dark wood and faint brocades, a carpet hushed as moss, elusive little water-colours, china ephemeral as frost-breath, books with the colouring of rare gems. There were no photographs in the room, and there was no silver, no flotsam and jetsam of Christmas and birthday offerings, but there were flowers everywhere, not massed with heavy ballroom effects, nor set at conventional intervals like a well-drilled regiment, but leading the eye on with unexpected thrills of pleasure from one delicate single shade to another, like tiny semitones in a fairy scale. From without, where the river crept beneath the dark splendour of turned beeches edging the terrace, the long, low, gray-faced house with its plain windows looked almost asleep, but there was a very active brain at work within. Dandy--otherwise Anne--had no need to fear her image in the mirror, but she frowned at it, nevertheless. Even the image seemed joyously alive, with soft, bright hair, and blue eyes full of candid goodwill; and nothing about it clashed at first sight with its surroundings, yet she glanced from it to the old walls with amused yet abashed and apologetic resentment. For the first time in her life, Dandy Shaw was discovering that there are things which mean more than people. From the still house and the simple, beautiful room her thoughts went back to Halsted, her late home on the outskirts of a Lancashire town--to the overwhelming magnificence of its _ménage_, the long, rich meals, the endless contrivances for comfort, the stream of guests, the intricate programmes of amusement. She saw the big, red pile, with the shining cars slurring up its drive, the long lines of hothouses, the priceless roses, the precious orchids flung into elaborate schemes of colour. It was all rich and splendid and inviting, luxurious and perfectly organised; but Watters cared for none of these things.