“Back to being a good, honest day-labourer, if you say so, Miss Lorraine,” he assured her. “Well, but I don’t say so,” she retorted. “I want you to be a musician. I want you to have your old house back and to build----” Her voice broke. He was silent a little. Then he reached forth his hard, beautifully shaped hands. “Look at those--_hoofs!_ On nearer view do they look like a musician’s?” he asked. “The hands do and you could easily soften the skin,” she declared. “I learned cobbling in prison and did it for two years,” he remarked, and the girl paled sensitively, and her eyes fell. “And my job now is work in a shoe factory, and so it must be for----” “So it must not! No such thing!” she interrupted. He smiled at her fire, and she thought he was ready to be persuaded. And for some little time, Alice Lorraine urged him to alter what she found to be a bitterly fixed determination. But she was still shaken and confused by the excitement and emotion she had undergone, and presently she gave over for the moment, feeling that she could do better by waiting until she should have pondered over the matter alone. However, she secured his promise not to return to the West without letting her know nor without seeing her. By that time it was late and agreeing to meet him the next day, she took leave. The next day Dick Cartwright told her that he had decided to remain hereabouts for a fortnight if he was lucky enough to escape detection, after which he would go to the town where Reuben was attending college, preferring to see him there rather than in Farleigh at the Christmas holidays. Then he would stop here and tell her about it on his way West. He begged her earnestly not to try to dissuade him. His purpose was fixed, and it only caused him intense pain to have her attempt to alter it. Warm-hearted Alice agreed to desist temporarily at least and to help make his days in Farleigh successful whether they were only holidays or, as she continued secretly to hope, the beginning of a second residence. She learned all she could about Reuben to relate to his father when she met him, which was daily except when Alice was prevented from getting away, which happened only twice. She told him something more of Mr. Langley almost every time she saw him and learned the history of every person he mentioned any desire to know about. She helped him plan his nightly wanderings about the place, shared one of them and listened eagerly to what he told her of his experiences. She even managed to get him into the church one Sunday afternoon and to coax him to play a few bars on the familiar organ, the sight of which brought tears to his eyes. At moments when they were in good spirits they called themselves a pair of conspirators and wondered at the success which attended Dick Cartwright. For Alice assured him again and again that no one dreamed of there being any stranger in the place.