By this time she had got out of the wooded Slopes, and over the stile, and into the steep thoroughfare at the foot of the Abbey walls, the pavement of St. Michael’s Hill. Lottie did not feel that there was any harm in walking through the street alone, as Rollo thought there was. She wanted no attendant. A little bodyguard, invisible, but with a radiance going out from them which shone about her, attended upon her way--love and innocence and happiness, no longer with drooping heads but brave and sweet, a band invisible, guaranteeing their charge against all ills. As she went along the street with this shining retinue, there was nothing in all the world that could have harmed her; and nobody wanted to harm the girl--of whom, but that she was proud, no soul in St. Michael’s had an unkind word to say. Everybody knew the domestic trouble that had come upon her, and all the town was sorry for Lottie--all the more that there was perhaps a human satisfaction in being sorry for one whose fault was that she was proud. She met Captain Temple as she entered the Abbey Gate. Many thoughts about her had been in the kind old man’s heart all the morning, and it was partly to look for her, after vain walks about the Abbey Precincts, that he was turning his steps towards the town. He came up to her eagerly, taking her hand between his. He thought she must have been wandering out disconsolate, no matter where, to get away from the house which was no longer a fit home for one like her. He was so disturbed and anxious about her, that the shadow which was in his mind seemed to darken over Lottie, and cast a reflection of gloom upon her face. “You have been out early, my dear? Why did you not send for me to go with you? After matins I am always at your service,” he said. But there was none of the gloom which Captain Temple imagined in Lottie’s face. She looked up at him out of the soft mist of her own musings with a smile. “I went out before matins,” she said; “I have been out a long time. I had--something to do.” “My poor child! I fear you have been wandering, keeping out of the way,” said the old Captain. Then another thought seized him. Had she begun already to serve the new wife and do her errands? “My dear,” he said, “what have you been doing? you must not be too good--you must not forget yourself too much. Your duty to your father is one thing, but you must not let yourself be made use of now--you must recollect your own position, my dear.” “My position?” she looked up at him bewildered; for she was thinking only of Rollo, while he thought only of her father’s wife. “Yes, Lottie, my dear child, you have thought only of your duty hitherto, but you must not yield to every encroachment. You must not allow it to be supposed that you give up everything.”