"I don't see the absurdity," growled Mr Chester. "I don't see how Pitt can be mistaken, or how Anthony can get over the thing. You women run away with your own opinions, without ever stopping to hear reason; but other people will put two and two together. It is a very bad business." "It is exceedingly wrong of Mr Pitt to have dared to say such a thing," said Winifred, standing up quickly, and looking very tall and stately; "but it can hurt Anthony no more than--than it could hurt you. He could explain it, of course, but I hope he will never hear that anything so cruel and untrue has been suggested. Good-night, papa. I am glad there is nothing really the matter." She walked out of the room with the smile still on her lips and the backward curve of her slender throat a little more apparent. But those few words of opposition had done Anthony's cause no good with the Squire. He repeated to himself that women were so obstinate there was no dealing with them, and while he fancied himself as grieved as ever, in his heart, I think there lurked a secret hope that Winifred might be forced to acknowledge herself in the wrong. He was not in the least aware of the petty obstacle which had turned the current, nor indeed would he have acknowledged that the current had been turned at all, but, no doubt, as he went over the array of presumptive evidence against Anthony, he weighted it in a manner which he had not done until this moment. As for Winifred, the smile died out of her face before she reached her own room. A bright fire was burning; she went to the window, threw back the shutter, and stood looking out into the wild darkness. There were furious gusts, strange depths of blackness, lights gleaming and vanishing in the direction of Underham, a sawing of branches one against the other, now and then distant and mysterious sounds, as if the rush and roar of the great sea itself were swelling the tumult. Nothing but fancy could have brought such a sound, but Winifred caught at it, and would not let it go. The swoop of the wind upon the water, the jagged tossed waves hurling themselves against the sandy bar, the wild shrieks of the night, the blackness, the confusion, here and there, perhaps, a concentration of the horror, lives going out in a last cry... she pressed her face against the panes, shuddering and praying for the poor souls. All this while there was something nearer to her which she was shutting out and trying to overwhelm by a more terrible distress. It was the strongest of the two, after all. She softly closed the shutters, turning away from the window with pitiful compunction in her heart, as if she were leaving poor drowning men out in the cold, and came and sat before the fire to think of Anthony. For, though she might smile at her father's story, and a little smile again stole over the sweet grave face as she thought of the accusation, she knew Anthony well enough to dread the idea of its reaching his ears.