He knocked again, and even the sounds in the yard ceased. Only, high up among the trees above him, some large nocturnal bird fluttered heavily from bough to bough. For the third time he knocked and then the door of the next house opened suddenly, emitting a long stream of light into which several startled moths instantly flew. Following the light came a woman’s figure. “If thee wants Lintot,” said the voice of this figure, “thee can’t see ’im till along of most an hour. He be tending a terrible sick beast.” “I want to see Ninsy,” shouted Philip, knocking again on the closed door. “Then thee must walk in and have done with it,” returned the woman. “The maid be laid up with heart-spasms again and can open no doors this night, not if the Lord his own self were hammering.” Philip boldly followed her advice and entered the cottage, closing the door behind him. A faint voice from a room at the back asked him what he wanted and who he was. “It is Philip,” he answered, “may I come in and see you, Ninsy? It is Philip--Philip Wone.” He gathered from the girl’s low-voiced murmur that he was welcome, and crossing the kitchen he opened the door of the further room. He found Ninsy dressed and smiling, but lying in complete prostration upon a low horse-hair sofa. He closed the door, and moving a chair to her side, sat down in silence, gazing upon her wistfully with his great melancholy eyes. “Don’t look so peaked and pining, Philip-boy,” she said, laying her white hand upon his and smiling into his face. “’Tis only the old trouble. ’Tis nothing more than what I expect. I shall be about again tomorrow or the day after. But I be real glad to see ’ee here! Father’s biding down in the yard, and ’tis a lonesome place to be laid-up in, this poor old house.” Ninsy looked exquisitely fragile and slender, lying back in this tender helplessness, her chestnut-coloured hair all loose over her pillow. Philip was filled with a flood of romantic emotion. The girl had always attracted him but never so much as now. It was one of his ingrained peculiarities to find hurt and unhappy people more engaging than healthy and contented ones. He almost wished Ninsy would stop smiling and chattering so pleasantly. It only needed that she should shed tears, to turn the young man’s commiseration into passion. But Ninsy did not shed tears. She continued chatting to him in the most cheerful vein. It was only by the faintest shadow that crossed her face at intervals, that one could have known that anything serious was the matter with her. She spoke of the books he had lent her. She spoke of the probable break-up of the weather. She talked of Lacrima Traffio.