“He is still sleeping very peacefully,” said Mrs. Dermot, with a grateful look at Frances. “You had a very composing effect upon him this afternoon. I hope it did not tire you very badly.”

It was supper-time, and they had met at the table in the old farm-kitchen, which Lucy and Nell had been spreading with the home produce. It was the one meal of the day at which the whole family as a rule assembled, but Dolly and Milly were absent on this occasion in the sick-room, and Arthur and Maggie had not entered.

“It did not tire me at all,” Frances answered. “I was very, very glad to be of any use. I hope you will let me do it again.”

“You are very good,” said Mrs. Dermot. “He will be better after this for a time. A long, unbroken sleep always brings him back. Won’t you sit down?”

“Did you sleep?” Frances asked.

“Oh, yes, Mother slept,” said Lucy. “I took in her tea, and she never even knew.”

“She needed it badly enough,” put in Elsie. “She’s been up three nights running.”

“Ah, well, I expect I shall rest to-night,” said Mrs. Dermot, with her tired smile. “Oh, there you are, Arthur! I was just wondering. And Maggie,—where is she?”

He had entered from the scullery. He stopped beside her chair. “Maggie? I don’t know where Maggie is. Somewhere about, no doubt. How are you, Mother? Better?”

She looked up into his face, and Frances saw the flash of sympathy between them, realized for an instant the closeness of the bond at which till then she had only guessed, and felt as if she had looked upon something sacred.

“I am all right, dear,” said Mrs. Dermot. “I have had a most refreshing sleep, thanks to Miss Thorold’s kindness. Your father will be much better when he wakes.”

“Sit down, Arthur!” said Nell. “We want to begin.”

He glanced round with a quick frown. “Where is everybody? Maggie—Oliver! Why don’t they come in? Go and call them, Elsie!”

“I don’t know where they are,” said Elsie. “I’ve milked the cows and fed the horses and locked up. They went to market this morning, and I haven’t seen them since.”

“Oh, rot!” he said. “They must have come back long ago. They are probably dawdling round somewhere. Has no one seen them? Nell, haven’t you?”

Nell shook her head. “We’ve been busy in the dairy, Lucy and I. Only came in in time to get the supper. What’s it matter? They’ll turn up.”

He turned again to Elsie. “You say you locked up. Was the brown cob back?”

“I didn’t go that way,” she said, with a touch of defiance. “It was only the cart-horses I saw to. Joe was there too. Oliver always does the cob.”

“What does it matter?” Nell said again. “Maggie can have her supper when she comes in. There’s no reason to wait for her.”

“It does matter,” he returned sternly. “I won’t have any of you out on the moors after dark, and you know it.”

“My good man!” said Nell. “What do you think we’re made of?”

He whirled upon her in a sudden tempest of wrath. “Don’t you dare to gainsay me! I mean it. I—will—not—have—you—out—after—dark. Is that plain enough? Damn it! Do you think I’ll be defied to my face?”

“My dear!” said Mrs. Dermot very gently.

He looked down at her and curbed himself. “I’m sorry, Mother. But a chit like that—not eighteen!”

“I am eighteen,” asserted Nell, crimson-cheeked. “And I won’t be kept in order by you. So there!”

He turned his eyes upon her, and she shrank in spite of herself. “You will be kept in order by me,” he said. “You will go up to your room now—do you hear?—and stay there for the rest of the night.”

“I!” said Nell. “What—now?” She stood gripping the back of the chair in which she had been about to seat herself. Her face had gone from red to white. Her eyes stared straight across the table at her brother.

He answered her without moving, but his single word fell like a blow. “Now!”

There followed a terrific silence, during which it seemed to Frances that the wills of the man and the girl were in visible conflict though neither stirred or spoke. In the end there came a faint gasp from Nell, and she turned to obey.

Lucy started up with hysterical crying. “I’m going too, then—I’m going too!”

“You will stay where you are,” Arthur said, without turning his gaze from the younger sister.

She dropped back sobbing in the chair, and Nell went wordlessly to the door. Slowly she opened it, slowly passed out and closed it again.

Mrs. Dermot looked up at her son. “Elsie may take up her supper,” she said.

He shrugged his shoulders. “She can do as she likes.” He moved to his own place and sat down. His look came to Frances. “Sorry to treat you to this exhibition,” he said. “But discipline must be maintained.”

She met his look with the utmost directness. “Did you say discipline or tyranny?” she said.

She expected anger, was prepared for it, even desired it. But he only smiled.

“Yes, you may call it that,” he said. “But it’s in a good cause. Nell is getting above herself. She has got to learn. Lucy, sit up and behave yourself! You’ve nothing whatever to cry about. Good heavens, child! Why all this fuss?”

Lucy sobbed some inarticulate words into her handkerchief, and abruptly Frances leaned forward. She spoke in a low tone, very urgently, to Arthur.

“Let her run after Nell and fetch her back!” she said.

She could not have said exactly what prompted the request. It was not primarily pity for either of the two girls. It was the man himself who held her attention at that moment, and an overwhelming desire to move that iron will out of its undeviating course.

But his reception of her interference was disconcerting. Instead of displaying the opposition she had anticipated, he spoke again to the still sobbing girl.

“Dry your eyes, you silly girl, and go tell Nell to come back!”

Lucy looked up with a gasp of sheer amazement, and Frances found herself gasping too at the utter unexpectedness of his action. Arthur’s face wore a cynical expression, but he showed no sign of impatience. “Go on!” he said. “Go and fetch her back and be quick about it!”

Lucy got up and slipped from the room.

“Miss Thorold, may I give you some ham?” said Arthur.

Their eyes met, and she caught a quizzical gleam in his that sent an odd feeling as of tension relaxed through her.

“Thank you,” she said.

He proceeded to carve the ham in silence, and as he did so there came the sound of wheels and a horse’s feet outside.

“Here they are!” said Mrs. Dermot in a tone of relief.

“I knew they wouldn’t be long,” said Elsie.

Arthur’s face took an inscrutable look. He said nothing whatever.

Elsie carried round the plates and they began the meal. After a brief pause Nell and Lucy came back into the room and silently resumed their places; but a considerable interval elapsed before the opening of the outer door into the scullery told of the entrance of the latest comers.

Maggie came in looking flushed and nervous. Oliver entered behind her, swaggering a little, his bold eyes somewhat fierce.

“Hullo!” he said. “That’s right. I said you’d begin. We’d better sit down as we are.”

Maggie’s place was next to her mother. He pulled out the chair for her, and she dropped into it speechlessly.

“What have you been doing?” said Arthur.

He spoke quietly, but his tone was ominous. Maggie threw him one swift glance and then lowered her eyes.

“Everything’s all right,” said Oliver, with a touch of aggressiveness. “We thought we’d make a day of it. I’ll tell you all about it presently.”

“You’ll tell me now,” Arthur said.

“Oh, all right.” Oliver stood with his hand upon the back of Maggie’s chair. He bent suddenly over her. “Sure you want me to tell, Maggie?” he said.

She put up a trembling hand in answer. Abruptly he stooped lower and kissed her before them all.

The violent overturning of Arthur’s chair as he sprang to his feet brought him upright again with a jerk. He broke in upon the other’s furious oath with quick speech that yet was not wholly uncontrolled.

“Yes, you can damn as much as you please,” he said. “It won’t make a ha’porth of difference now. She is mine—for better for worse—and you can’t undo it. We were married to-day at Fordestown—after we’d sold the pigs.”

“Married!” The single word fell with frightful force from Arthur’s lips. He put his hand suddenly to his head.

Maggie crouched against her mother, and Mrs. Dermot, pale as death, put her arm about her without a word.

Then across the silence, shrill as the piping of a bird, came Nell’s voice. “Well played, Oliver! I wish you luck!”

He turned to her with his winning boyish smile and gripped her outstretched hand across the table.

“Thanks, little ’un! You’re a brick, and I’ll always remember it.”

Elsie left her end of the table and came round to Maggie. Lucy cowered in her chair and hid her face.

Arthur’s hand fell and clenched at his side. He spoke—not to Oliver, but to Maggie.

“Is this true?”

She looked up at him with an effort. Through quivering lips she answered him. “Yes.”

“You are—actually married—to this—damned—clod?”

Oliver straightened himself sharply. “I’ll answer that question,” he said. “Come outside and I’ll show you the exact stuff he’s made of!”

But at that Maggie left her mother’s sheltering arm and got up. She stood between the two men, breathing very fast.

“You shan’t fight about me,” she said. “You’ve nothing to fight about, for I belong to Oliver and always shall, from now on. I’ve the right—as every woman has—to choose my own mate, and I’ve chosen. That’s all there is to it.”

There was a simple dignity about her as she uttered the words that carried an irresistible appeal to Frances. Shaking as she was with agitation, the girl asserted her right of womanhood with a decision that none might question.

Arthur did not attempt to question it. He merely lifted a hand and pointed to the door.

“All right,” he said. “You can go—you and your mate. And you will never enter Tetherstones again.”

He did not look at Oliver. He had scarcely looked at him from the outset. But at that the young man’s wrath boiled over, and he compelled attention.

“You think that you and your blasted Tetherstones count a couple of damns with either of us, do you?” he said. “You think that because poor Nan broke her heart here, we’d be pining to do the same! You’re a damn’ fool, Arthur, that’s what you are. And now I’ve got what I want, I take pleasure in telling you so. You’re too grand a swell to fight the likes of me. You don’t fight your own labourers! No, I thought not. But you can’t prevent ’em telling you the truth or taking a woman out of your family and giving her happiness—common or garden happiness—in place of this infernal mass of corruption you’re pleased to call your family honour. I’ve got my honour too, but it’s not your sort, thank God. I’m just a plain man, and I’ve no frills of any kind. But I’ve got the right to marry the girl who loves me, and there’s no one on this earth can come between us now. If they think they can, well, let ’em try, that’s all. Just let ’em try!”

He moved with the words, and pulled Maggie to him, pressing her close to his side. But his eyes remained upon Arthur, hot with anger and superbly contemptuous of the other man’s superior strength.

Arthur stood motionless. His look was turned upon Oliver, but he made no attempt whatever to check the fierce torrent of words so forcibly poured out. To Frances he had the look of the gladiator sorely wounded yet holding his ground for the sake of that honour which Oliver so bitterly denounced. And her heart went out to the man in sudden wild rush of sympathy that seemed to sweep away all rational thought. She found herself on her feet and quivering with a burning desire to help him in some way, though how she knew not. The deadly pallor of his face, the awful fixity of his eyes, were more than she could bear.

He spoke—this time to Oliver but he did not deign to waste a single word in answer to the furious challenge hurled at him.

“Let me see your marriage certificate!” he said.

His words fell with the utmost calm and Frances wondered if she were the only one in the room who knew how cruelly deep was his wound.

Oliver drew a hard angry breath, as though he found himself unexpectedly held in check by some force unknown. He stared for a moment, then with a sullen air thrust a hand inside his coat. He brought out a paper which he flung down in front of Arthur.

“There you are. You’ll find it all in order,” he said. “You won’t undo that knot in a hurry.”

Arthur picked up the document, opened and scanned it, then held it in silence before his mother. She laid an imploring hand upon his.

“Arthur—Arthur!” she said, an anguished break in her voice. “Don’t do anything in a hurry! I can’t lose another of my girls like my darling Nan.”

“I’m afraid you have lost her, Mother,” he replied, with a species of grim gentleness, “since she has chosen to go.”

“I haven’t chosen to go!” burst from Maggie. She turned and flung her arms closely about her mother. “If I have to go, it’ll be your doing, not mine and not Oliver’s. He’s willing to stay. He’s told me so. In fact, he was willing to go on here in the same old way, and not to tell, only I felt I couldn’t bear it. He’s thought of me and my happiness all through—all through. And we’ve loved each other for years. You don’t know what love is. You can never possibly understand. But Mother knows—Mother knows.”

“Yes, I know,” said Mrs. Dermot, and the tragedy of the quiet utterance was as though she stood beside one dead.

There was a brief pause as of involuntary reverence, then Oliver spoke, his voice steady and deferential. “It was only for the mother’s sake we came back,” he said. “I’d sooner have gone to the other end of the world myself. But—well, Maggie’s happiness was at stake, so I couldn’t.”

“Maggie’s happiness!” An exceedingly bitter note sounded in Arthur’s voice. “Was it for Maggie’s happiness, may I ask, that you persuaded her to do this thing?”

Oliver’s look flashed back to him. He stiffened himself afresh for battle. Couldn’t he see, Frances asked herself desperately? Were they all blind to the agony of this man’s soul?

“Yes, it was,” he flung back hotly. “It was for her happiness. Don’t you dare to question that, Arthur Dermot! You’re not in a position to question it. There’s not a woman on this earth who would trust her happiness to you. And you know it.”

The blow went home. Frances felt as if it had been directed against herself. She did not need to see the stricken look in Arthur’s eyes. She knew without seeing, and on the instant she acted, for further inaction was unedurable.

Before he could make any reply to the thrust, she was in the lists beside him.

“You are wrong!” she said, and her voice rang clear and triumphant before them all. “You are utterly wrong! I would!”

She turned to him quivering with the greatness of the moment to find his eyes upon her with that in them which thrilled her to the soul.

She stretched forth a trembling hand. “I would!” she repeated, and this time she spoke to him alone. “You know I would!”

He caught her hand and closely held it. “Yes, I know—I know!” he said. Then curtly to Oliver, “That’s enough for the present. Sit down and have some supper, you and Maggie too! We’ll discuss this thing in the morning. Frances, sit here!”

He pulled forward a chair and she sat beside him at the head of the table. But save for that one brief command he did not speak to her or look in her direction again.

No one else ventured to address a word to her. Only Mrs. Dermot leaned forward and gently pressed her hand.