Then I saw Gilly.

She was wearing one of Alvean’s old dressing gowns which I had altered to fit her, and her feet were in a pair of slippers which I had bought for her.

I said: ” What are you doing here, Gilly?”

She opened her mouth as though to speak. I waited, but she smiled at me and nodded.

I said: ” What has happened, Gilly? It is something, I know. You must tell me.”

She pointed to the door and stared at it.

I felt a shiver run down by spine because Gilly often made me think that she could see things which I could not.

” There’s nothing there,” I said.

She nodded again and then she spoke: ” She’s here. She’s here.”

I felt my heart beat fast. I thought: She means that Alice is here.

This was Alice’s home. She has found Alice here.

” Mrs. TreMellyn …” I whispered.

She smiled rapturously and continued to nod.

” You … you’ve seen her?”

Gilly nodded again.

” In this house?”

Again the nod.

” I’ll take you to her.” The words tumbled out. ” She wants me to.”

I got out of bed and with trembling fingers wrapped my dressing gown about me and put my feet into my slippers.

Gilly took my hand.

We went through a gallery and down a short staircase. Gilly rapped with her fingers on the door and appeared to listen.

She looked up at me and nodded as though she had heard someone tell her to enter. I bad heard nothing. It was very uncanny.

Then she opened the door. We were in a room which was shadowy, for the day was young yet.

Gilly pointed, and for a few seconds I thought I saw a woman standing there. She was dressed in a ball dress and her fair hair fell about her shoulders in long silken curls.

I stared, and then I saw that I was looking at a life-size oil painting.

I knew I was face to face with Alice.

I went close to the painting and looked up at it. The blue eyes looked straight out of the picture at me and it seemed as though words were forming themselves on those red lips.

I forced myself to say: ” What a good artist must have painted that picture!”

But perhaps because it was not yet quite light, because this grey house was sleeping, because Gilly had brought me here in her own strange way, I felt that this was more than a picture.

” Alice,” I whispered. And I stared at that painted face, and, practical woman that I was, I half expected her to step out of the frame and talk to me.

I wondered when that had been painted . before or after the disastrous marriage, before she had known she was to have Geoffry’s child or after.

” Alice,” I said to myself, ” where are you now, Alice? You are haunting me, Alice. Since I have known you I have known what haunting means.”

Gilly was holding my hand.

I said: ” It’s only a picture, Gilly.”

She reached out a small finger and touched the white ball-dress.

Gilly had loved her. I looked into that soft young face and thought I understood why.

Poor Alice, who had been caught up in too many emotions, what had become of her?

I suddenly realised that it was a winter’s morning and I was lightly clad.

“We’ll catch our deaths,” I said practically; and taking Gilly’s hand in mine I firmly shut the door on Alice.

I had been at Penlandstow a week, and I was wondering how much longer this idyllic interlude could last, when Connan spoke to me of what was in his mind.

The children were in bed and Connan asked me if I would join him in a game of chess in the library.

There I found him, the pieces set out on the board, sitting looking at them.

The curtains had been drawn and the fire burned cheerfully in the great fireplace. He rose as I entered and I quickly slipped into my place opposite him.

He smiled at me and I thought his eyes took in every detail of my appearance, in a manner which I might have found offensive in anyone else.

I was about to move king’s pawn when he said: ” Miss Leigh, I did not ask you down here to play. There is something I have to say to you.”

” Yes, Mr. TreMeUyn?”

” I feel I have known you a very long time. You have made such a difference to us both Alvean and myself. If you went away, we should miss you very much. I am certain that we should both want to ensure that you do not leave us.”

I tried to look at him and failed because I was afraid he would read the hopes and fears in my eyes.

” Miss Leigh,” he went on, ” Will you stay with us … always?”

” I … I don’t understand. I … can’t believe …”

” I am asking you to marry me.”

” But … but that is impossible.”

” Why so. Miss Leigh?”

” Because ‘… because it is so incongruous.”

” Do you find me incongruous … repulsive? Do please be frank.”

” I… No indeed not! But I am the governess here….”

” Precisely. That is what alarms me. Governesses sometimes leave their employment. It would be intolerable for me if you went away.”

I felt I was choking with my emotions. I could not believe this was really happening to me. I remained silent. I dared not try to speak.

” I see that you hesitate, Miss Leigh.”

” I am so surprised.”

” Should I have prepared you for the shock?” His lips twitched slightly at the corner. ” I am sorry, Miss Leigh. I thought I had managed to convey to you something of my feelings in this matter.”

I tried to picture it all in those few seconds myself going back to Mount Mellyn as the wife of the Master, slipping from the role of governess to that of Mistress of the house. Of course I would do it and in a few months they would forget that I had once been the governess. Whatever else I lacked I had my dignity perhaps a little too much of it, according to Phillida. But I should have thought that a proposal would have been made in a different way. He did not take my hand; he did not touch me; he merely sat at the table watching me in an almost cool and calculating manner.

He went on : ” Think of how much good this could bring to us all, my dear Miss Leigh. I have been so impressed by the manner in which you have helped Alvean. The child needs a mother. You would supply that need … admirably.”

” Should two people marry for the sake of a child, do you think?”

” I am a most selfish man. I never would.” He leaned forward across the table and his eyes were alight with some thing I did not understand. ” I would marry for my own satisfaction.”

” Then …” I began.

” I confess I was not considering Alvean alone. We are three people, my dear Miss Leigh, who could profit from this marriage. Alvean needs you. And I… I need you. Do you need us? Perhaps you are more self-sufficient than we are, but what will you do if you do not marry?

You will go from post to post, and that is not a very pleasant life.

When one is young, handsome and full of spirit it is tolerable . but sprightly governesses become ageing governesses. “

I said acidly: ” Do you suggest that I should enter into this marriage as an insurance against old age?”

” I suggest only that you do what your desires dictate, my dear Miss Leigh.”

There was a short silence during which I felt an absurd desire to burst into tears. This was something I had longed for, but a proposal of marriage should have been an impassioned declaration, and I could not rid myself of the suspicion that there was something other than Connan’s love for me which had inspired it. It seemed to me as though he were offering me a list of reasons why we should marry, for fear I should discover the real one.

” You put it on such a practical basis,” I stammered. ” I had not thought of marriage in that way.”

His eyebrows lifted and he laughed, looking suddenly very gay. ” How glad I am. I thought of you always as such a practical person, so I was trying to put it to you in the manner in which I felt it would appeal to you most.”

” Are you seriously asking me to marry you?”

” I doubt if I have ever been so serious in my life as I am at this moment. What is your answer? Please do not keep me in suspense any longer.”

I said I must have time to consider this. ” That is fair enough. You will tell me tomorrow?”

” Yes,” I said. ” I will tell you tomorrow.” I rose and went to the door. He was there before me. He laid his fingers on the door handle and I waited for him to open it, but he did no such thing. He stood with his back to the door and caught me up in his arms.

He kissed me as I had never been kissed, never dreamed of being kissed; so that I knew that there was a life of the emotions of which I was totally ignorant. He kissed my eyelids, my nose, my cheeks, my mouth and my throat until he was breathless, and I was too. Then he laughed.

” Wait until the morning!” he mocked. ” Do I look the sort of man who would wait until the morning? Do you think I am the sort of man who would marry for the sake of his daughter? No, Miss Leigh .. he mocked again, ” my dear, dear Miss Leigh . I want to marry you because I want to keep you a prisoner in my house. I don’t want you to run away from me, because, since you came, I have thought of little else but you, and I know I am going on thinking of you all my life. “

” Is this true?” I whispered. ” Can this be true?”

“Martha!” he said.

“What a stern name for such an adorable creature! And yet, how it fits!”

I said: ” My sister calls me Marry. My father did too.”

” Marty,” he said. ” That sounds helpless, clinging … feminine…. You can be a Marty sometimes. For me you will be all three. Marty, Martha and Miss Leigh, my very dear Miss Leigh. You see you are all three, and my dearest Marty would always betray Miss Leigh. I knew from her that you were interested in me. Far more interested than Miss Leigh would think proper. How enchanting! I shall marry not one woman but three!”