Miss Bingham stood between the old world and the new; and that experience, for any man or woman’s soul, is hazardous. She saw herself in true outline. As others gambled with gold and silver pieces, she had played with hearts. She had not known the value of the stakes; but now she understood. One by one, in memory’s cold procession, she saw them pass—Blake, his young soul on fire with worship; Anstruther, who had persisted in throning her among the stars, and who was now, they said, no company for any gentry save those of wayside taverns. She hid her eyes. Spoiled, wayward, she resented the discipline of penance. Day by day she thought more of Christopher, and welcomed his sturdy self-reliance as a shield against her past. Day by day, too, Joan Grant grew more silent, more aloof from the haphazard routine of their life among the hills. And the whole camp looked on, afraid for their idol, Christopher, afraid for Joan, great loathing for Miss Bingham growing in their midst. Miss Bingham, well aware of the hostility, did not know whether her heart were hardened or softened by it. It was as if she stood in the thick of a northern March—sunshine on one side of the hedge, sleet and a bitter wind on the other. But there came a day when she carried her troubles to a little, ferny glen hidden deep among the pastures and the heather. Their morning’s route had brought them near to Hawes, the grey village that gathers the spreading Yorkshire dales into its hand as a lady holds an open fan. The camp was busy, dining on odds and ends—mutton, cabbage, herbs, all stewing fragrantly in a pot reared gipsy-wise over a fire of wood—and Miss Bingham heard their laughter come up the breeze. They had purchased a barrel of home-brewed ale from a neighbouring tavern, and were toasting Blake at the moment. "Here’s to li’le Blake, who never tires," said the Squire. "Why should he?" put in Michael. "Women have never troubled him, I wager." "At your age, youngster, to go flouting the good sex!" growled the Governor. "Your pardon, sir. The sex has flouted me. I’m envying Blake because he had mother-wit to steer wide of trouble. Even Elizabeth, who dotes on me, is full of the most devilish caprices." Kit grew impatient of it all. He was in no mood for the banter and light jests that eased the journey home to Nappa. There was a fever in his blood, a restlessness whose cause was known to every man in camp except himself. He sought some hiding-place, with the instinct of all wounded folk; and his glance fell on a wooded gorge that showed as a sanctuary set in the middle of a treeless land. He came down the path between the honeysuckle and the flowering thorns. There was a splash of water down below, and he had in mind to bathe in some sequestered pool and wash away the heat and trouble of the times. He found the pool, green with reflected leafage, deep and murmurous, and saw Miss Bingham seated at its brink. She turned with a smile of welcome.