Mellyora is a wonderful chatelaine. I have never known anyone as capable of happiness. She is able to forget the hardship she endured under old Lady St. Larnston, the unhappiness she suffered through Justin; she once told me that she looks on the past as a steppingstone to the future.

I wish that I could.

If only Granny were with me! If only I could talk to her! If only I could draw on her wisdom!

Carlyon is growing up. He is tall, bearing scarcely any resemblance to Johnny, but he's a St. Larnston for all that. He is sixteen and spends more time with Joe than with me. He is like Joe—the same gentleness, the same absorption with animals. Sometimes I think he wishes that Joe were his father; and as Joe has no son of his own he can't help being delighted by their relationship.

The other day I was talking to Carlyon of his future and, his eyes shining with enthusiasm, he said: "I want to go in with Uncle Joe."

I was indignant. I reminded him that he would be Sir Carlyon one day and tried to make him see the future I had in mind for him. St. Larnston couldn't be his, naturally, but I wanted him to be master of a big estate as, I pointed out, his ancestors had been for generations.

He was sad because he didn't want to hurt me, and he believed I was going to be disappointed in him, for gentle as he is, he has a will of his own. How could I expect otherwise in my son?

This has put a gulf between us and it grows wider every day. Joe knows of it, and feels the boy should choose for himself. Joe is fond of me, although I sometimes think he is afraid of me. Only once or twice has he referred to that night when Kim and I brought him out of the woods; but he will never forget it. It moves him deeply to think what he owes to Kim and me; and although his outlook on life is different from mine, he understands me a little; he knows about my ambition for Carlyon. After all, I was once ambitious for Joe.

He talks to the boy; he has tried to persuade him that the life of a country vet, while pleasant enough for uneducated Uncle Joe, is not the life for Sir Carlyon.

But Carlyon remains firm; and so do I. I notice that he avoids being alone with me. To know this, and to be forced to watch the family at Abbas makes me ask myself: What happiness did all my scheming bring to me?

David Killigrew writes to me frequently. He is still a curate and his mother lives on. I should write to David and tell him I will never marry again. But I avoid it. It gives me pleasure to think of David waiting and hoping. It makes me feel important to someone.

Kim and Mellyora tell me I am important to them. Mellyora calls me her sister—Kim calls me his. Kim, whom my heart and body calls out for! We were meant for each other; sometimes I almost tell him so, but he is unaware.

He told me once that he loved Mellyora first when he heard that she had taken me home from Trelinket Fair. "She seemed so gentle," he said, "and yet she was capable of such an act. Gentleness and strength, Kerensa. A perfect combination and the strength was all for someone else! That's my Mellyora! And then when she brought you to the ball! Never be deceived by my Mellyora's gentleness; it's the gentleness of strength."

I have to see them together and I have to pretend. I was at the birth of the children. Two boys and two girls. There will be more. The eldest will inherit the Abbas. He is being brought up to love it and work for it.

Why should this happen to me when I planned and worked ... and came so far?

But I still have Carlyon and constantly I remind myself that he will be Sir Carlyon one day, for Justin cannot live much longer. He is a sick man. Sir Carlyon! He must have a future worthy of himself. I still have Carlyon to work for. I shall never allow him to be the village vet.

Sometimes I sit at my window looking out on the towers of the Abbas and weep silently. No one must know how I suffered. No one must know how I failed.

Sometimes I go and stand in the ring of stones and it seems to me that my fate is more wretched than theirs. They were turned to stone while they were dancing defiance. I wish I could have been.

9

Mellyora and Kim came over from the Abbas this evening.

They were frightened.

"We want you to come back with us, Kerensa, just until they find him."

I was cool. I have so far managed to hide my feelings; in fact one of my triumphs—the few left to me—is the manner in which I deceive them into thinking that I am just a good friend to them both.

"Find whom?"

"It's Reuben Pengaster. He's escaped. They rather think he'll come back here."

Reuben Pengaster! It was years ago that he had tried to wall me up. There had been times when I told myself I wished he had succeeded; if he had, I should have gone to my death believing that Kim loved me as I loved him; and it seems that the greatest tragedy of my life was learning otherwise.

I laughed, "I'm not afraid."

"Listen, Kerensa." This was Kim speaking, his voice stern, his eyes clouded with concern for me. "I've heard from Bodmin. They're specially concerned. For the last days he's been acting strangely. He said he had something to do and he was going to do it. It was something that he should have done before they took him, he says. They're certain he'll come back here."

"Then they'll have guards here. They'll be watching for him."

"People like that are cunning. Remember what he almost did."

"But for you, Kim," I reminded him gently.

Kim shrugged impatiently. "Come over to the Abbas. Then our minds will be at peace."

I thought: Why should your minds be at peace? Mine has not been all these years because of you.

I said: "You're exaggerating. I shall be perfectly all right here. I'm not moving."

"It's crazy," Bum insisted; and Mellyora was almost in tears.

"We'll come over here then," went on Kim.

I was happy to see his concern. I wanted him to go on worrying about me all through the night.

"Fm not having you here and I'm staying here," I said finally. "This is exaggeration. Reuben Pengaster has forgotten my existence."

I sent them away and I waited.

Night in the Dower House. Carlyon was at school. Daisy was still with me. I had not told her because I did not want to frighten her. She was asleep in her room.

I sat at my window. There was no moon but it was a frosty night and the stars were bright.

I could just make out the ring of stones. Was that a shadow I saw there? Was that a sound I heard? A window being lowered? A door latch being lifted?

Why did I feel this elation? Apart from locking up as usual, I had taken no special precautions. Would he know where to find me? When he had been put away I was living in the Dower House. I lived there now.

Would he find some way of breaking into the house? Would I hear a stealthy step outside my door, that sudden laugh? I could still hear it. I heard it in my dreams. There were times when I saw those big strong hands about to clasp my throat.

Sometimes in the night I called out: "Why did Kim come and save me? I wish he had left me to die."

And that was why I was sitting now—half fearfully, half hopefully. I wanted to know myself, I wanted to discover whether I was glad or sorry to be alive.

I pictured him, the light in his eyes, the mad laughter.

I knew that he had broken out to come for me. He was a sick man-fearfully, mentally sick; but Kim was right when he said such men had cunning. And when he came for me I should know.

He would kill me; perhaps he would hide me somewhere until he could build me into a wall. I knew that was what he believed he must do.

Walled up as the Seventh Virgin! I had been walled up for years, shut away from all that made life good. No sunshine to warm my bones, my life a dead thing.

Was that a footfall below? I went to my window and saw a dark figure there in the shadow by the garden hedge. My throat had gone dry, and when I tried to call out my voice made no response.

Reuben was down there. He had come for me as he had said he would. Of course he had come. Was that not his purpose in breaking out? He had something to do, and he had come to do it.

As I stood at the window, unable for those seconds to move or to plan what to do, it came back to me so vividly that I relived it all again—the horror of being alone with Reuben in the cottage, and later when I recovered a little of my senses and found myself in the cool night air, about to be walled up, face to face with death.

I knew then that I did not want to die. That above everything else I wanted to live.

And Reuben was down there, waiting to kill me.

The shadowy figure had disappeared behind the hedge and I knew that it had moved closer to the house.

I drew my dressing gown about me. I did not know what I was going to do. My teeth were chattering. One thought only was going round and round in my head: Oh God, let me live. I do not want to die.

How soon before he found a way into the house. Everything was locked but people like Reuben, whose minds were filled with a single purpose, often found a way.

Why had I not gone to the Abbas? They had wanted me—Kim and Mellyora. They loved me ... in their way; but they loved each other more. Why must I always want to be the first? Why could I not take what was offered and be thankful? Why did it always have to be the best for me?

I left my bedroom and made my way through the quiet house, down the staircase to the back door. There was a glass panel in that door and my heart leaped with terror, for through the glass I could vaguely see the shape of a man.