There was a moment's silence. Any of the other three, Gilbert Deyes especially, perhaps, would have found it hard to explain, even to realize the interest with which they listened to the conversation between these two--the somewhat unkempt, ill-attired boy, with the nervous, forceful manner and burning eyes, and the woman, so sure of herself, so coldly and yet brutally ungracious. It was not so much the words themselves that passed between them that attracted as the undernote of hostility, more felt than apparent--the beginning of a duel, to all appearance so ludicrously onesided, yet destined to endure. Deyes turned in his chair uneasily. He was watching this intruder--a being outwardly so far removed from their world. The niceties of a correct toilet had certainly never troubled him, his clothes were rough in material and cut, he wore a flannel shirt, and a collar so low that his neck seemed ill-shaped. He had no special gifts of features or figure, his manner was nervous, his speech none too ready. Deyes found himself engaged in a swift analysis of the subtleties of personality. What did this young man possess that he should convey so strong a sense of power? There was something about him which told. They were all conscious of it, and, more than any of them, the woman who was regarding him with such studied ill-favour. To the others, her still beautiful face betrayed only some languid irritation. Deyes fancied that he saw more there--that underneath the mask which she knew so well how to wear there were traces of some deeper disturbance. "Do you mind explaining yourself?" she asked. "That sounds rather an extraordinary statement of yours." "A few months ago," he said, "I attended regularly one of the police courts in London. Day by day I came into contact with the lost souls who have drifted on to the great rubbish-heap. There was a girl, Martha Gullimore her name was, whose record for her age was as black as sin could make it. Her father, I believe, is the blacksmith in your model village! I spoke to him of his daughter yesterday, and he cursed me!" "You mean Samuel Gullimore--my farrier?" she asked. "That is the man," he answered. "Have you any other--instances?" she asked. "More than one, I am sorry to say," he replied. "There were two young men who left here only a year ago--one is the son of your gardener, the other was brought up by his uncle at your lodge gates. I was instrumental in saving them from prison a few months ago. One we have shipped to Canada--the other, I am sorry to say, has relapsed. We did what we could, but beyond a certain point we cannot go." She leaned her head for a moment upon the slim, white fingers of her right hand, innocent of rings save for one great emerald, whose gleam of colour was almost barbaric in its momentary splendour. Her face had hardened a little, her tone was almost an offence. "You would have me believe, then," she said, "that my peaceful village is a veritable den of iniquity?"