ard Caroline safely open the front door, these
discontents grew more active still. Here he was, seeing her home, and
making no objection, though some one had actually said in his hearing
that she was Miss Wilson's maid-servant. He had not told her this from
feelings of delicacy, but he began to think that delicacy was rather
wasted on her, and determined to do so at the next opportunity.

Caroline opened the door softly and was creeping up the old stairs
which creaked at every step, when Miss Ethel peered out of her bedroom
and caught a glimpse of flame colour beneath the open coat.

"Good night, Miss Ethel," said Caroline cheerfully.

For a moment Miss Ethel could not bring words over her lips. That
Ellen's niece should return thus at midnight, opening the house door
with a latch-key, while she, herself, condoned it, though she
disapproved as violently as ever. She felt a sort of tingling shame
and resentment like a fighter who has to retreat, as she said in a
muffled tone: "Good night, Caroline."

_Chapter VI_

_Morning Calls_

Miss Ethel was sawing off the dead branch of a tree that threatened to
fall on the path when Mrs. Bradford came out of the house and walked
slowly across the garden, saying as she passed: "I don't know what you
want to do that for, Ethel. You look quite overheated. Why don't you
get a man to do it?"

Miss Ethel--beads of perspiration on her flushed forehead and hands
trembling with exertion so that she could scarcely hold the
saw--replied with pardonable acerbity: "I didn't get a man because I
couldn't. You know that. Talk about unemployment! I only know you
can't get a jobbing gardener for half a day, even if you put your pride
in your pocket and crawl all round Thorhaven on your hands and knees
asking one to come as a favour--besides, what would he charge?"

"Well, leave the branch, then," said Mrs. Bradford. "You do worry
yourself so, Ethel."

"Somebody must worry," retorted Miss Ethel. Then the bough split
unexpectedly and fell, causing her to graze her hand so that it bled.
Immediately afterwards there came a loud crash from the other side of
the hedge, and for a moment the two women felt their hearts jump with
the old sense of helpless, defiant waiting on fate which they had
experienced when bombs fell from enemy aircraft during the war. But
the next second they remembered they were safe--though that had ceased
to be a thing to thank God for.

"It's only a c