"No, no; it was not your fault at all," she said quickly. "I have thought a good deal about it while I have been ill, and I have learnt some things that I might never have learnt any other way, and I see now that--that----" And she dropped her eyes to hide the moisture that had suddenly gathered. "I see now that it was very wrong of me to speak to you as I did." "You were reared to command," he said, ready in a moment to champion her cause, "and I ought to have considered that. Besides, it isn't a man's place to be rude to a girl--I beg your pardon, miss, I mean to a----" "No, no," she interrupted, with a laugh; "don't alter the word, please. If I feel almost an old woman now, I was only a girl then. How much we may live in a few weeks! Don't you think so?" "You have found that out, have you?" he questioned. And a troubled look came into his eyes. "You see, lying in bed, day after day and week after week, gives one time to think----" "Yes?" he questioned, after a brief pause. She did not reply for several seconds; then she went on as if there had been no break. "I don't think I ever thought seriously about anything before I was ill. I took everything as it came, and as most things were good, I just enjoyed myself, and there seemed nothing else in the world but just to enjoy one's self----" "There's not much enjoyment for most people," he said, seeing she hesitated. "I don't think enjoyment ought to be the end of life," she replied seriously. Then, suddenly raising her eyes, she said-- "Do you ever get perplexed about the future?" "I never get anything else," he stammered. "I'm all at sea this very moment." "You? Tell me about it," she said eagerly. He shrugged his shoulders, and looked along the road toward the village. Should he tell her? Should he open her eyes to the doings of her own father? Should he point out some of the oppressive conditions under which the poor lived? For a moment or two there was silence. He felt that her eyes were fixed intently on his face, that she was waiting for him to speak. "I suppose your father has never told you that we have lost our little farm?" he questioned abruptly, turning his head and looking hard at her at the same time. "No. How have you lost it? I do not understand." "Well, it was this way." And he went on to explain the nature of the tenure on which his father leased his farm, but he was careful to avoid any mention of her father's name. "And you say that in twelve years all the three 'lives' have died?" "That is unfortunately the case." "And you have no longer any right to the house you built, nor to the fields you reclaimed from the downs?" "That is so." "And the lord of the manor has taken possession?" "He has let it to another man, who takes possession the day after to-morrow." "And the lord of the manor puts the rent into his own pocket?" "Yes." "And your father has to go out into the world and start afresh?"