ice Frostham is a girl I cannot abide. I
would not go near her."

"Brune, will you take a long ride for my sake?"

"I will do anything for you I can."

"I met Ulfar Fenwick this morning."

"Then you did a bad thing. I would not have believed it of you. Good
Lord! there is as much two-facedness in a woman as there is meat in an
egg."

"Brune, you are thinking wrong. I did not know he was in the country
till he stood before me; and he did not move me a hair's-breadth any
way. But Lottie from the vicarage saw us together; and she was going
to Dalton. You know what she will say; and by and by the Frosthams
will hear; and then they will feel it to be 'only kind' to talk to
Will about me and my affairs; and the end of it will be some foolish
deed or other. If you love me, Brune, go to Redware to-night, and see
Lady Redware, and tell her there is danger for her brother if he stays
around here."

"I can say that truly. There is danger for the scoundrel, a good deal
of it."

"Brune, it would be such a sorrow to me if every one were talking of
me again. Do what I ask you, Brune. You promised to stand by me
through thick and thin."

"I did; and I will go to Redware as soon as I have eaten my dinner. If
Lottie saw him, it will be known all over. And if no one came up here
on purpose to tell Will, he would hear it at Dalton next week, when
that lot of bothering old squires sit down to their market dinner. It
would be a grand bit for them to chew with their victuals."

"I thought they talked about politics."

"They are like other men. If you get more than one man in a place,
they are talking bad about some woman. They call it politics, but it
is mostly slander."

"I am going to tell Will myself."

"That is a deal the best plan."

"Be sure to frighten Lady Redware; make her think Ulfar's life is in
danger,--anything to get him out of the dales."

"She will feel as if the heavens were going to fall, when I get done
with her. My word! who would have thought of him coming back? Life is
full of surprises."

"But only think, if there was never anything accidental happened!
Surprises are just what make life worth having,--eh, Brune?"

"Maybe so, and maybe not. When Will comes home, tell him everything at
once. I can manage Lady Redware, I'll be bound."

With the promise he went away to perform it, and Aspatria carried her
trembling heart into solitude. But the lonely place was full of Ulfar.
A thousand hopes were bud