strange to him, and asking me further of them.

"What could make you leave so happy a home for such a dungeon as this?"
he asked, looking round.

Then I hung my head, and reddened foolishly, but he gave a loud laugh
and said, "I can well understand. There was some country lout that your
father would have wedded you to. That is the way with the prettiest
maidens."

"Tom Windham was no country lout," I answered proudly; upon which he
leaned forward and asked, "What name was that you said? Windham? and
from Westover? Is he a tall fellow with straw-coloured hair and a cut
over his left eye?"

"He got it in a good cause," I answered swiftly; "have you seen him?"

"Yes, lately. It is the same. Lucky fellow! I would I were in his place
now." And he fell straightway into a moody taking, looking down as if he
had forgotten me.

"Sir, do you say so?" I stammered foolishly, "when--when----"

"When you have run away from him? Not for that, little maid;" and he
broke again into a laugh that had mischief in it. "But because when we
last met he was in luck and I out of it, yet we guessed it not at the
time."

"I am glad he is doing well," I said proudly.

"Then should you be sorry for me that am in trouble," he answered. "For
I have no home now, nor am like to have, but must go beyond seas and
begin a new life as best I may."

"I am indeed sorry, for it is sad to be alone. If Mrs. Gaunt had not
been kind to me----"

[Sidenote: Interrupted]

"And to me," he interrupted, "we should never have met. She is a good
woman, your mistress Gaunt."

"Yet, I have heard that beyond seas there are many diversions," I
answered, to turn the talk from myself, seeing that he was minded to be
too familiar.

"For those that start with good company and pleasant companions. If I
had a pleasant companion, one that would smile upon me with bright eyes
when I was sad, and scold me with her pretty lips when I went
astray--for there is nothing like a pretty Puritan for keeping a
careless man straight."

"Oh, sir!" I cried, starting to my feet as he put his hand across the
deal table to mine; and then the door opened and Elizabeth Gaunt came
in.

"Sir," she said, "you have committed a breach of hospitality in entering
a chamber to which I have never invited you. Will you go back to your
own?"

He bowed with a courteous apology and muttered something about the
temptation being too great. Then he left us alone.

"Child," she said to me, "