The first step towards showing him had been to run to the window, to ascertain whether it were possible to climb down from it, or even, since the upper storey of the house was at no great height from the ground, to drop down from it. She had not previously thought of this way of escape, and so had not inspected the window. It needed only the most cursory inspection now to inform her that to squeeze herself through it would be impossible. She began to cry again, and was still convulsively sobbing when Mr. Ross came cautiously into the garden through a wicket-gate opening into the stable-yard, and saw her.

The moon was up, brightly illuminating the scene, so there was really no need for Mr. Ross, softly treading along the flagged path until he stood immediately beneath Amanda’s window, to attract her attention by saying, thrillingly, “Hist!” Amanda had seen him as soon as he entered the garden, and had moodily watched his approach. She could think of no way in which he could be of assistance to her.

“Miss Smith! I must have speech with you!” piercingly whispered Mr. Ross. “I heard all!”

“All what?” said Amanda crossly.

“All that you said to Sir Gareth! Only tell me what I can do to help you!”

“No one can help me,” replied Amanda, sunk in gloom.

“I can, and will,” promised Mr. Ross recklessly.

A faint interest gleamed in her eyes. She abandoned her despairing pose, and looked down at his upturned face.

“How? He locked me in, and the window is too small for me to get out of.”

“I will think of a way. Only we cannot continue talking like this. Someone may hear us! Wait! There is bound to be a ladder in the stables! If I can contrive to do so unobserved, I’ll fetch it, and climb up to you!”

Amanda began to feel more hopeful. Up till now she had not considered him in the light of a possible rescuer, for he seemed to her very young, and no match for a man of Sir Gareth’s fiendish ingenuity. He now appeared to be a man of action and resource. She waited.

Time passed, and the slight hope she was cherishing dwindled. Then, just as she was thinking that there was nothing to do but to go to bed, Mr. Ross came back, bearing a short ladder, which was used for climbing into the hayloft. He set this up against the wall of the house, and mounted it. He had to climb to the topmost rung before his head rose above the window-sill, and his hands could grasp it, and the last part of the ascent was somewhat precariously accomplished.

“Oh, pray be careful!” begged Amanda, alarmed but admiring.

“It’s quite safe,” he assured her. “I beg pardon for having been such an age: I had to wait, you see, because that man—your guardian’s groom—was giving the head ostler all manner of directions. Why are you locked in?”

“Because Sir Gareth is determined not to let me escape,” she replied bitterly.

“Yes, but—You see, I did not perfectly understand from what you was saying to him why you wish to escape, or what he means to do with you. Of course, I saw how much you feared him long before!”

“Saw how much I—Oh! Oh, yes!” said Amanda, swallowing with an effort her very natural indignation. “I am wholly in his power!”

“Yes, well, I suppose—I mean, if he’s your guardian, you must be. But what has he done to frighten you? Why did you say he was a snake?”

Amanda did not answer for a moment. She was feeling tired, quite unequal to the task of rapidly composing a suitable explanation. A sigh broke from her. The sadness of this sound wrought powerfully upon Mr. Ross. He ventured to remove one hand from the sill, and to lay it tenderly on hers. “Tell me!” he said.

“He is abducting me,” said Amanda.

Mr. Ross was so much astonished that he nearly fell off the ladder. “Abducting you?” he gasped. “You cannot be serious!”

“Yes, I am! And, what is more, it’s true!” said Amanda.

“Good God! I would not have believed it to have been possible! My dear Miss Smith, you may be easy! I will instantly have you set free! There will be no difficulty. I have but to inform the parish constable, or perhaps a magistrate—I am not perfectly sure, but I shall speedily discover—”

“No, no!” she interrupted hastily. “It would be useless! Pray do not do so!”

“But I am persuaded it is what I should do!” he expostulated. “How should it be useless?”

She sought wildly for some explanation which would satisfy him. None occurred to her, until, just as she was wondering whether she dared tell him the truth, or whether (which she suspected) he would disapprove as heartily as Sir Gareth of her plan of campaign, there flashed into her brain a notion of transcendent splendour. It almost took her breath away, for not only was it an excellent story in itself: it would, properly handled, afford her the means of being exquisitely revenged on Sir Gareth. It was Sir Gareth’s own story, now to prove his undoing. “You see,” said Amanda, drawing a deep, ecstatic breath, “I am an heiress.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Ross, rather at a loss.

“I was left an orphan at an early age,” she continued, embellishing Sir Gareth’s crude handiwork. “Alas! I am quite alone in the world, without kith or kin.”

Mr. Ross, himself a great reader of romances, found nothing to object to in the style of this narrative, but cavilled a little at the matter. “What, have you no relations at all?” he asked incredulously. “No cousins, even?”

Amanda thought him unnecessarily captious, but obligingly presented him with a relative. “Yes, I have an uncle,” she conceded. “But he cannot help me, so—”

“But why not? Surely—”

Amanda, regretting the creation of an uncle who seemed likely to prove an embarrassment, with great presence of mind place him beyond Mr. Ross’s reach. “He is in Bedlam,” she said. “So we need not think any more about him. The thing is that—”

“Mad?”interrupted Mr. Ross, in horrified accents.

“Raving mad,” said Amanda firmly.

“How very dreadful!”

“Yes, isn’t it? Because I have no one to turn to but Sir Gareth.”

“Is he a dangerous madman?” asked Mr. Ross, apparently fascinated by the uncle.

“I do wish you would stop asking questions about my uncle, and attend to what I am saying!” said Amanda, exasperated.

“I beg pardon! It must be excessively painful for you!”

“Yes, and it is quite beside the point, too. Sir Gareth, wishing to possess himself of my fortune, is determined to force me into marriage with himself, and for this purpose is carrying me to London.”

“To London? I should have thought—”

“To London,” repeated Amanda emphatically. “Because that is where he lives, and he means to incarcerate me in his house until I submit. And it’s no use saying the parish constable would stop him, because Sir Gareth would deny every word, and say that he was taking me to live with his sister, who is a very disagreeable woman, and would do anything to oblige him. And everyone would believe him, because they always do. So you would only make a great noise, which I should very much dislike, and all to no purpose.”

Mr. Ross could see that this was very likely, but he was still puzzled. “Where have you been living?” he demanded. “I don’t perfectly understand. You said he abducted you: haven’t you been residing under his roof?”

“No, no, I have hitherto resided with a very respectable woman, who—” She stopped, and decided to eliminate a possible danger. “—who is dead. I mean, she died two years ago, and Sir Gareth then placed me in a seminary, which is exactly the sort of thing he would do! Only now that I am old enough to be married, he came and removed me, and naturally I was pleased, because then I believed him to be everything that was amiable. But when he told me that I must marry him—”

“Good God, I should have thought he would have had more address!” exclaimed Mr. Ross. “Told you that you must marry him when he had only that instant removed you from the seminary?”

“Oh, no! The thing was that he supposed I should like the notion, because previously I had been excessively attached to him, on account of his being so handsome, and agreeable. Only, of course, I never thought of marrying him. Why, he’s quite old! So then I was in a great fright, and I ran away from the place where we were staying last night and he chased me all day, and found me at last, and brought me here. And I cannot think how to escape again, and oh, I am so very unhappy!”

The passionate sincerity with which these final words were uttered pierced Mr. Ross to the heart. He was ashamed to think that he had for a moment doubted the story, and in some agitation implored Amanda not to cry. Amanda, between sobs, told him of her early adventures. These had been wholly enjoyable at the time, but regarded in retrospect, now that she was tired and defeated, the day seemed to her to have been one of unrelieved misery and discomfort.

Mr. Ross had no difficulty in believing this at least. He would, indeed, have found it impossible to have believed that anything less than the direst necessity could have induced a gently-born young female to have take so unprecedented and perilous a step as to cast herself upon the world as she had done. From the moment of her escape, the poor little thing had been mercilessly hounded. It did not surprise him to learn that the fat old gentleman who had with such false kindness offered to carry her to Oundle had tried to take advantage of her innocence. His sensitive nature made it easy for him to imagine the desperation of terror which must have had her in its grip, and the thought of so fragile and lovely a creature cowering on the floor of a farm-cart made him shudder, not the smallest suspicion entering his head that she had thoroughly enjoyed this part of her adventure. The description of the devilish cunning employed by Sir Gareth to regain possession of her lost nothing in the telling. Sir Gareth began, in Mr. Ross’s mind, to assume an aspect of smiling villainy. He wondered how he should have been taken-in by his pleasant manners, until he remembered certain warnings given him by his father against too readily trusting smooth-tongued and apparently creditable gentlemen of fashionable appearance. The world, said the Squire, was full of plausible banditti on the lookout for green young men of fortune. Their stock-in-trade was winning charm, and they frequently bestowed titles upon themselves, generally military. No doubt they were also on the look-out for rich wives, but naturally the Squire had not thought it necessary to tell his son this.