me to her immediately with a cup in his hand.

"You must drink this at once, mistress."

She took it at once, drank and set it down, aware of the keen,
angry-looking face that watched her.

"You will dine here, too, mistress--" he began, still with a sharp
kindness.... And then, on a sudden, all grew dark about her; there was a
roaring in her ears, and she fainted.

* * * * *

She came out of her swoon again, after a while, with that strange and
innocent clearness that usually follows such a thing, to find Alice
beside her, a tapestried wall behind Alice, and the sound of a crackling
fire in her ears. Then she perceived that she was in a small room, lying
on her back along a bench, and that someone was bathing her foot.

"I ... I will not stay here--" she began. But two hands held her firmly
down, and Alice's reassuring face was looking into her own.

* * * * *

When her mind ran clearly again, she sat up with a sudden movement,
drawing her foot away from Janet's ministrations.

"I do very well," she said, after looking at her foot, and then putting
it to the ground amid a duet of protestations. (She had looked round the
room to satisfy herself that no one else was there, and had seen that it
must be the parlour that she was in. A newly-lighted fire burned on the
hearth, and the two doors were closed.)

Then Alice explained.

It was impossible, she said, to ride on at once; the horse even now was
being bathed in the stable, as his mistress in the parlour. The squire
had been most considerate; he had helped to carry her in here just now,
had lighted the fire with his own hands, and had stated that dinner
would be sent in here in an hour for the three women. He had offered to
send one of his own men on to Booth's Edge with the news, if Mistress
Marjorie found herself unable to ride on after dinner.

"But ... but it is Mr. Audrey!" exclaimed Marjorie.

"Yes, my dear," said Alice. "I know it is. But that does not mend your
foot," she said, with unusual curtness. And Marjorie saw that she still
looked at her anxiously.

* * * * *

The three women dined together, of course, in an hour's time. There was
no escape from the pressure of circumstance. It was unfortunate that
such an accident should have fallen out here, in the one place in all
the world where it should not; but the fact was a fact. Meanwhile, it
was not o