"I should hate him, rage or no rage," she said.

The door opened and in he came.

"Bah!" he exclaimed. These inns are draughty places." His rage had left him now; he smiled at them benignly.

"Bless me, if it ain't young Grey! It is young Grey, ain't it? And the lady?”

Darrell got to his feet, but it was Kitty who spoke.

"My name is Kitty Kennedy.”

"Kitty Kennedy!" said the squire. He brought his black brows together.

"By God!" he went on.

"Is it to your Aunt Harriet that you are going?”

"It is to my Aunt Harriet.”

He slapped his thigh and laughed deeply.

"I thought I knew you. Why, my lady, you and I are not strangers.”

He towered over her, and she drew farther back in the window seat, pretending not to see the huge hand extended towards her.

"I do not think," she said with dignity, 'that you and I have met before." And she made an almost imperious sign for Darrell to take the seat beside her; there was not room for three on the window seat.

"The squire means." explained Darrell, sitting down, 'that he knows your aunt and knew your mother. That is why he does not feel you to be a stranger.”

Trust a lawyer for putting his finger right on the point!" cried George Haredon. That's right, I knew your family. Kitty. And you're Bess's girl! By God, I knew it! You've got Bess's looks.”

She resented his familiarity. She slipped her hand into Darrell's, and because of a certain fear that had come to her she held her head higher.

George Haredon leaned forward.

"I could almost believe it was Bessie herself sitting there." he murmured. He breathed heavily, excitedly, and his eyes glistened.

"I have always heard." said Kitty, coolly, 'that I much resembled my mother.”

"And, by God, whoever told you that was right!”

He was so close that she could feel the warmth of his body; a smell of spirits was on his breath, and that of horses on his clothes. She wrinkled her nose in disgust, and she did not care that he saw this.

She turned to Darrell and began to talk of the towns through which they had passed, and when George Hare-don joined in she turned the subject to that of Their fellow passengers of whom he could know nothing.

Darrell was embarrassed, for he was a good deal in awe of the squire.

She thought how beautiful, how cultured, how gentlemanly Darrell was, compared with this man, and because she sensed that he was a little afraid of him she wanted to put her arms round him to protect him; it was a new feeling, this tenderness, a new and wonderful feeling. She made up her mind in that moment that she was going to marry Darrell whatever obstacles had to be overcome. He needed her and she needed him.

George Haredon stood, watching them, his great hands hanging helplessly at his sides. She was aware of those hands; she could not forget the way in which one of them had seized the serving maid, and she knew that he longed to seize her in just that way. He was repulsive; he was hateful; he was arrogant too; he tried to force his way between her and Darrell.

"Why!" he said, coming so close that again she smelt the spirits on his breath.

"Bess made a fine lady of her girl. Trust Bessie for that, And I'll tell you something I like it. I like it very much.”

Here he was, the arrogant male, strutting in his plumage.

"I like it very much! Are you not flattered? For here I am cock of the walk!" But Kitty would show him she was not one of his country wenches to be cursed one moment and kissed the next. Her eyes kindled; they rested on his flowered waistcoat, spotted where he had spilled his gravy. She wanted him to know that she hated the smell of stables that clung to him, hated his big, hairy, not very clean hands, hated even more his crude manners.

"It does not greatly concern me whether you like it or not," she told him. I He laughed, but he was nevertheless disconcerted. He was fascinated by the proud set of the head on her shoulders, by that fearlessness, to be expected from Bess's daughter. The likeness to Bess moved him deeply. She thought him coarse, did she!

Bess, who had never minced her words, had found him so in the old days.

Bess's contempt had pierced the armour of his arrogance, filled him with the desire to beat the pride out of her. That was why Bess had attracted him so strongly. Now it was happening again, with Bess's daughter in the place of Bess, and this enforced stay at the Dorchester inn was changed from a tiresome incident to an exhilarating adventure.

"So you made the journey all alone, eh?" he said.

"Why, if Harriet had told me, Dammed, I would have travelled up to get you myself, that I would. You should not have been allowed to travel alone.”

She lifted her eyes to Darrell and smiled at him very sweetly.

"Mr. Grey looked after me very well, thank you!”

The devil he did! Trust a lawyer for getting the best out of a situation.”

The door was opened suddenly, and the matron came in with her two daughters.

She said in a loud voice: The lamb was mutton, but edible. Sit down, children ... just for a little while. Then we will go to our rooms. I do declare that travelling in this way can be a tiresome business. But there, doubtless we miss our carriage.”

George Haredon was studying the two daughters quizzically; they simpered, casting coy glances in his direction. Their mother was alert, while she made a pretence of great languor.

The squire went to them. Travelling in one's own carriage can be a tiresome business, Ma'am," he said.

"Here am I, stranded for the night because one of my horses has gone lame. A devilish business! May I introduce myself? Squire Haredon. at your service. Ma'am.”

He was smiling at the two girls. Their mother presented them.

"My dear daughter, Emily my dear daughter, Grace.”

The squire was out to impress. He sat between the two girls.

"I could have taken another horse, but I'm fond of my horses. It's nothing much a little lameness. I'll leave her here tomorrow if she's not better, but I've a fancy that a night's rest is all she wants.”

The merchant and his wife came in, and the merchant began to talk of wars in general.

"It is so hot in here," said Kitty after a while. Darrell I shall go to my room now. I am tired; it has been a tiring day.”

She said goodnight to the company and went up to her room. She undressed quickly and got into bed. Her face was burning. She could not shut out of her mind the thought of those bold brown eyes and the strong hands with the down of black hair on them. From below came the murmur of voices. She pictured them all in the parlour George Haredon ogling Emily and Grace. She was grateful to Emily and Grace. How relieved she had been when those bold eyes had ceased to contemplate her.

There were footsteps on the stairs. They would be taking their candles from the table in the hall; they would be coming up the stairs. Sudden panic seized her: she leaped out of bed and turned the key in her door.

She leaned against the door, laughing at herself; absurd to be so frightened of him. He had turned his attentions to Grace or Emily. She got back into bed. Moonlight streamed into her room. She felt happier now that the door was locked. She dozed, and suddenly she was awakened again. She sat up, startled. Some noise had awakened her. She listened. There it was again. A light rattling, like the sound ghostly fingers might make on the windowpane.

She covered her face with the sheets; it came again. She uncovered herself and looked round the room; then she got out of bed and went to the window. She knelt on the seat and looked out.

Standing below her window was George Haredon. He had just picked up another handful of gravel to throw at her window.

For a second or two they stared at each other; then she stepped backwards. Hastily throwing a cloak about her shoulders, she went to the window and secured the bolt.

She did not look at him again, but she heard him laugh softly. She got into bed with her cloak still round her; she was trembling, not with cold but with rage.

Harriet Ramsdale was in bee still-room when she heard the carriage stop outside her gate. She hastily locked a cupboard door, untied the apron about her waist and smoothed the folds of her muslin dress. She was a large woman with fine dark hair which she wore simply; her eyes were grey under bushy eyebrows; her mouth was thin and straight. At the sound of the carriage on the road her mouth softened a little, for she guessed it was the squire's carriage, and peering out of the window she confirmed this. She saw him alight: she saw him push open her gate in that forthright way which she admired so much; she saw him coming up the path to the front door.

She was as excited as Harriet Ramsdale could be excited, but with a return of her primness of manner she went back to the jars of blackberry jelly on the table, and began writing on their lids in a very precise, neat handwriting, "June, 1783'.

"Don't be ridiculous, Harriet Ramsdale," she said under her breath, for when she was quite a small girl and Jeffry and Bess had not included her in their games she had formed the habit of talking to herself and had never lost it.

"You're turned forty, and don't forget it!”

She was essentially practical: she was dogmatic; she was just. She set a strict pattern for herself to follow Harriet, the daughter of a dearly beloved father, the only one in the entire family who had not disappointed him. Her house with its tasteful furniture, its polished floors where never a speck of dust was allowed to remain for long at a time, was a credit to her. For what would Peg and Dolly be doing, without Their mistress at their heels? A pair of sluts, if ever there was a pair of sluts! Workhouse girls, wasteful, indolent and Harriet suspected, immoral. But then, having lived in a family which contained her mother, her brother Jeffry and her sister Bess, she was apt to suspect everyone of immorality. She had borne the great shock of her father's death some ten years back with fortitude, for she was strong of mind and body, and her one great weakness was her unswerving affection for George Haredon; it was a romantic affection, and quite lacking in that common sense which she, no less than others, expected of herself. It had begun when she had just passed sixteen and Bess was nearly fourteen; George must have been about eighteen at the time, and so handsome, so dashing, such a man of the world, that Harriet had admired him fervently, even though he did occasionally join in with Jeffry and Bess to tease her cruelly. Bess, even at fourteen, had been a lovely creature, and George's interest had been all for her, for in spite of Harriet's boundless good sense, in spite of the fact that she had been endowed with all the qualities which go to the making of a sensible wife, George, in common with the rest of his sex, was foolish enough not to recognize these virtues. When men grow older they learn wisdom; that fact was in Harriet's mind hourly.