"I will come with you," said Joan, as the servant went out from the room. Richard Walton rose from his chair. "Perhaps you would like me, too?" "No, I don't think that's necessary," replied Joan Daventry. "But perhaps you would stay within sound of the bell. We don't know who this man is or what he wants. If we ring again, you would know that we needed your advice." "Certainly, I will be upon the lookout," said Walton, and he went from the room and crossed to the servants' quarters. There he would hear the bell at once should it ring for him. Joan meanwhile turned with a smile to Cynthia. "We will leave you here for a few minutes," she said, and the composure of her voice almost reassured the girl; would, indeed, have quite reassured her but for Robert Daventry. She saw that his hands trembled so that the paper shook in them, even as her hands had trembled this morning when she climbed up by the edge of the wheat into her cart. "Yes, wait here, Cynthia," said Robert Daventry, as he got to his feet; and Cynthia noticed that while he spoke to her he altogether avoided the glance of her eyes. The old couple went out of the room together, leaving her alone, and carefully latched the door behind them. In the hall for a moment they stood resting from their pretence. A broken word or two burst from Robert Daventry: "What shall we do, Joan? This is what we have dreaded always." Joan raised her finger to her lips. "Hush! Speak lower. What I said was true. We don't know who he is, or what he wants. He may not be the man who stopped her in the field at all." Robert Daventry shook his head. It was rather his nature to run to meet misfortune if he saw its shadow in his way. "What shall we do?" he repeated. "Money will send him away," said Joan. "And bring him back again," replied Robert hopelessly. "Sooner or later Cynthia will know;" and Joan threw up her head at his words. "No," she said vigorously. "No." At her left hand a door stood open upon a dark room. This was the smoking-room. She entered the room and crossed it to the opposite wall. Then she opened a second door, and advancing into this inner room, felt for the switch in the darkness and turned on the light. Bookcases, filled for the most part with books on agriculture, lined the room, a round table, littered with papers, occupied the centre, in the recess of a window stood a writing-desk. This was Robert Daventry's study. Her husband followed her, and saw that her finger was already on the bell. "Let us decide what we are to do," he said, "before you ring." Joan shook her head. "We can't. We must be guided by what the man knows, and by what he wants. Only we admit nothing," she declared resolutely; and she pressed the bell. It rang in the passage by the kitchen, but Cynthia, left alone in the dining-room, heard it too.