It was an unpleasant shock to Juliet on the following morning when she went to Mrs. Fielding's room after breakfast to find her lying in bed, pale and tear-stained, refusing morosely to partake of any nourishment whatever.

Juliet always breakfasted alone, for the squire was in the habit of taking his early ride first and coming in late for the meal. She usually took a morning paper up with her with which to regale the mistress of the house before she rose, but the first glance showed her that this attention would be wholly unwelcome to-day. Even the letters that had accompanied her breakfast tray were scattered unopened by her side.

"Why, what is the matter?" said Juliet.

"I've had—a wretched night," said Mrs. Fielding, and turned her face into the pillow with a sob.

Her maid glanced at Juliet with raised brows, and indicated the untouched breakfast with a shrug of helplessness.

Juliet came to the bedside. "What is it? Aren't you well?" she questioned.

"No, I'm wretched—miserable!" The words came muffled with sobs.

Juliet looked round. "All right, Cox. You can go. I will ring when you are wanted."

Cox went, leaving the despised breakfast behind her.

Juliet turned back to the bed, and found Mrs. Fielding weeping unrestrainedly. She bent over her, discarding all ceremony. "My dear girl, do stop!" she said. "What on earth is the matter? You won't get over it all day if you go on like this."

"Of course I shan't get over it!" sobbed Mrs. Fielding indignantly. "I never do. He knows that perfectly well. He knows—that when once I'm down—it takes me days—weeks—to get up again."

"Oh, dear!" said Juliet. "It's a quarrel, is it?"

Mrs. Fielding raised herself with a furious movement and thrust out a white arm on which the bruises of a fierce grip were mercilessly defined. "That's how—he—quarrels!" she said bitterly.

Juliet drew down the loose night-dress sleeve with a gentle but very decided hand. "Don't let anyone else see it!" she said. "And don't tell me any more unless you're sure—quite sure—you want me to know!"

"Why shouldn't you know?" said Mrs. Fielding pettishly through her falling tears. "It's your fault in a way. At least it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been here—you and that horrid little cad of a schoolmaster."

"Oh, don't put it like that!" said Juliet. "It's such a pity to offend everybody at once. You really mustn't cry any more or you'll be ill. I'm sure it isn't worth that."

"I don't care if I die!" cried Mrs. Fielding, with a fresh burst of weeping. "I'm miserable—miserable! And nobody cares."

She flung herself down upon the pillow in such a paroxysm of hysterical sobbing that Juliet actually was alarmed. She stood beside her, impotent, unable to make herself heard, and wondering what to do. She had never before looked upon such an abandonment of distress as she now beheld, and since Mrs. Fielding was obviously beyond all reasoning or consolation she was powerless to cope with it. She could only stand and wait for the storm to spend itself.

It seemed, however, to increase rather than to abate, and she was beginning to contemplate recalling Cox to her assistance when to her astonishment the door suddenly opened, and Fielding himself appeared upon the threshold.

She turned sharply, her first impulse to keep him out, for he wore an ugly look. But in a moment she realized that the direction of affairs was not in her control. He came straight forward with a mastery that would brook no interference.

"Leave her to me!" he said, as he reached Juliet.

But at the first word his wife uttered so wild a shriek of alarm that Juliet turned back to her with the swift instinct to protect. In an instant Mrs. Fielding was clinging to her, clinging desperately, frantically, like a terrified child.

"Oh, don't go! Oh, don't leave me!" she gasped. "Juliet! Juliet!
Stay—oh, stay!"

She could not refuse the appeal. It went straight to her heart. She put her arms about the quivering, convulsed form and held it close.

"I can't go!" she said hurriedly to the squire.

"Stay then!" he said curtly.

Then abruptly he stooped over the trembling, hysterical woman. "Vera," he said, "stop it at once! Do you hear me? Stop it!"

He did not raise his voice, but his words had a pitiless distinctness that seemed somehow more forcible than any violence. Vera Fielding shrank closer to Juliet's breast.

"Don't leave me! Don't leave me!" she moaned, still shaken from head to foot with great sobs she could not control.

"She won't go if you behave yourself," said the squire grimly. "But if you don't, I'm damned if I won't turn her out and deal with you myself."

"Don't be brutal!" breathed Juliet.

He gave her a swift, fierce look, but she met it unflinching and as swiftly it fell away from her. He took one of his wife's feverish, clutching hands and firmly held it.

"Now you listen to me!" he said. "I don't want to bully you but I can't and won't have this sort of thing. It's damnably unfair to everybody. So you pull yourself together and be quick about it!"

The trembling hand clenched in his grasp. "I hate you!" gasped Mrs.
Fielding furiously. "Oh, how I hate you!"

The man's mouth took an ominous downward curve. "I've heard that before," he said. "Now that's enough. We're not going to have a scene in front of Miss Moore. If you can't control yourself, out she goes."

"She won't go," flashed back Mrs. Fielding. "She's on my side. Ask her if she isn't! She won't leave me to your tender mercies again. She knows what they are like."

"Hush!" Juliet said. "Don't you know there isn't a man living who can stand this? Be quiet, my dear, for heaven's sake! You're making the most hideous mistake of your life."

She spoke with most unwonted force, and again the squire's steely eyes shot upwards, regarding her piercingly. "You're quite right," he said briefly. "I won't stand it. I've stood too much already. Now, Vera, you behave yourself, and stop that crying—at once!"

There was that in his tone that quelled all rebellion. Vera shrank closer to Juliet, but she began to make some feeble efforts to subdue her wild distress. Fielding sat on the edge of the bed, her hand firmly in his, and waited. His expression was one of absolute and implacable determination. He looked so forbidding and so formidable that Juliet wondered a little at her own temerity in remaining. She decided then and there that a serious disagreement with the squire would be too great a tax upon any woman's strength, and she did not wonder that Vera's had broken down under it.

Suddenly he spoke. "Has she had any breakfast?"

"Not yet," said Juliet.

"Oh, don't!" implored Vera, with a shudder.

He got up and went to the untouched tray. Juliet watched him pour out some tea as she smoothed the tumbled hair back from his wife's forehead.

He came back with the cup in his hand. "Now," he said, "you are going to drink this."

She lifted scared eyes to his stern face. "Edward!" she whispered.
"Don't—oh, don't look at me like that!"

He stooped over her, and put the cup to her lips. She drank, quivering, not daring to refuse. When she had finished he brought her bread and butter and fed her, mouthful by mouthful, while the tears ran silently down her face.

At last he turned again to Juliet. "Miss Moore, my wife will not object to your leaving us now."

It was a distinct command. But she hesitated to obey. Vera looked up at her piteously, saying no word. The squire frowned heavily, his eyes grimly, piercingly, upon Juliet.

She met his look with steady resolution. "Won't you leave her to rest for a little while?" she said. "I think she needs it."

"Very well," he said, and though he did not look like yielding she realized to her surprise that he had done so. He turned to the door. "I should like a word with you in the library," he said, as he reached it. "Please come to me there immediately!"

He was gone. Vera turned with a sob and clasped Juliet closely to her.

"He is going to send you away. I know he is," she wailed. "What shall I do? What shall I do?"

"Lie down!" said Juliet sensibly, releasing herself to settle the tumbled bedclothes. "Don't cry any more! Just shut your eyes and lie still!"

She laid her down upon the pillow with the words as if she had been a child, smoothed the rumpled hair again, and after a moment bent and kissed the hot forehead.

"Oh, thank you!" murmured Mrs. Fielding. "I'm dreadfully unhappy, Juliet.
I don't know what I shall do without you."

"Go to sleep!" said Juliet, tucking her up. "I'll come back presently.
Lie quite still till I do!"

She guessed that exhaustion would come to her aid in this particular as she drew the curtains close and turned away to face her own ordeal.

"Come back soon!" Vera called after her as she softly shut the door.

"Presently," Juliet said again.

She realized as she descended the stairs that her heart was beating uncomfortably hard, but she did not pause on that account. She wanted to face the squire while her spirit was still high.

She held her head up as she entered the library where he awaited her, but she knew within herself that it was bravado rather than fearlessness that enabled her to face him thus. And when he turned sharply from the window to meet her she was conscious of a moment of most undignified dread.

Whether her face betrayed her or not she never knew but she was aware in an instant of a change in his attitude. He came straight up to her, and suddenly her hand was in his and he was looking into her eyes with the gleam of a smile in his own.

"Come along!" he said. "Let's have it! I'm the biggest brute you ever came across, and you never want to set eyes on me again. Isn't that it?"

It was winningly spoken, restoring her self-confidence in a second. She shook her head in answer.

"No. I'm not in a position to judge, and I don't think I want to be. I have no real liking for meddling in other people's affairs."

"Very wise!" he commented. "But you won't have much choice if you decide to stay with us. Are you going to stay?"

"Are you going to keep me?" said Juliet.

"Certainly," he returned promptly. "I regard you as the most valuable member of the household at the present moment. Miss Moore, will you tell me something?"

"If I can," said Juliet.

"Where did you learn such a lot about men?" he said.

She coloured a little at the question. "Well, I haven't lived with my eyes shut all this time," she said.

"You evidently haven't," he said. "Allow me to compliment you on your tact! Ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have taken the obvious course of siding with their own sex against the oppressor. Why didn't you, I wonder?"

"I'm not sure that I don't," she said, smiling faintly.

He pressed her hand and released it. "No, you don't. You've too much sense. You know as well as I do that she deserved all she got and more. You haven't always found her exactly easy to get on with yourself, I'll be bound."

"I don't think you are either of you that," Juliet said quietly.

He nodded. "Now it's coming! I thought it would. No, Miss Moore, I am not easy to get on with. I've had a rotten life all through, and it hasn't made me very pliable." He paused, looking at her under his black brows as if debating with himself as to how far he would take her into his confidence. "I've been cheated of the best from the very outset," he said, "cheated and thwarted at every turn. That sort of treatment may suit some people, but it hasn't made an archangel of me." He fell to pacing up and down the room, staring moodily at the floor, his hands behind him. "Life is such an infernal gamble at the best," he said; "but I never had a chance. It's been one damn thing after another. I've tripped at every hurdle. I suppose you never came a cropper in your life—don't know what it means."

"I think I do know what it means," Juliet said slowly. "I've looked on, you know. I've seen—a good many things."

"Just as you're looking on now, eh?" said the squire, grimly smiling. "Well, you profit by my experience—if you can! And if love ever comes your way, hang on to it, hang on to it for all you're worth, even if you drop everything else to do it! It's the gift of the gods, my dear, and if you throw it away once it'll never come your way again."

"No, I know," said Juliet. She rested her arm on the mantelpiece, gravely watching him. "I've noticed that."

"Noticed it, have you?" He flung her a look as he passed. "You've never been in love, that's certain, never seriously I mean,—never up to the neck."

"No, never so deep as that!" said Juliet.

He passed on to the end of the room, and came to a sudden stand before the window. "I—have!" he said, and his voice came with an odd jerkiness as if it covered some emotion that he could not wholly control. "I won't bore you with details. But I loved a woman once—I loved her madly. And she loved me. But—Fate—came between. She's dead now. Her troubles are over, and I'm not such a selfish brute as to want her back. Yet I sometimes think to myself—that if I'd married that woman—I'd have made her happy, and I'd have been a better man myself than I am to-day." He swung round restlessly, found her steady eyes upon him, and came back to her. "The fact of the matter is, Miss Moore," he said, "I was a skunk ever to marry at all—after that."

"It depends how you look at it," she said gently.

"Don't you look at it that way?" he said, regarding her curiously.

She hesitated momentarily. "Not entirely, no. The woman was dead and you were alone."

"I was—horribly alone," he said.

"I don't think it was wrong of you to marry," she said. "Only—you ought to love your wife."

"Ah!" he said. "I thought we agreed that love comes only once."

She shook her head. "Not quite that. Besides, there are many kinds of love." Again for a second she hesitated looking straight at him. "Shall I tell you something? I don't know whether I ought. It is almost like a breach of confidence—though it was never told to me."

"What is it?" he said imperatively.

She made a little gesture of yielding. "Yes, I will tell you. Mr. Fielding, you might make your wife love you—so dearly—if you cared to take the trouble."

"What?" he said.

Her eyes met his with a faint, faint smile. "Doesn't it seem absurd," she said, "that it should fall to me—a comparative stranger—to tell you this, when you have been together for so long? It is the truth. She is just as lonely and unhappy as you are. You could transform the whole world for her—if you only would."

"What! Give her her own way in everything?" he said. "Is that what you're advising?"

"No. I'm not advising anything. I am only just telling you the truth," said Juliet. "You could make her love you—if you tried."

He stared at her for some seconds as if trying to read some riddle in her countenance. "You are a very remarkable young woman," he said at last. "I wouldn't part with you for a king's ransom. So you think I might turn that very unreasonable hatred of hers into love, do you?"

"I am quite sure," said Juliet steadily.

"I wonder if I should like it if I did!" said the squire.

She laughed—a sudden, low laugh. "Yes. You would like it very much. It's the last and greatest obstacle between you and happiness. Once clear that, and—"

"Did you say happiness?" he broke in cynically.

"Yes, of course I did." Her look challenged him. "Once clear that and if you haven't got a straight run before you—" She paused, looking at him oddly, very intently, and finally stopped.

"Well?" he said. "Continue!"

She coloured vividly under his eyes.

"I'm afraid I've lost my thread. It doesn't really matter. You know what I was going to say. The way to happiness does not lie in pleasing oneself. The self-seekers never get there."

He made her a courteous bow. "Thank you, fairy god-mother! I believe you are right. That may be why happiness is so shy a bird. We spread the net too openly. Well," he heaved a sigh, "we live and learn." He turned to the table and took up his riding whip. "I suppose my wife will be in bed and sulk all day because I vetoed the Graydown Races."

"Oh, was that the trouble?" said Juliet.

He nodded gloomily. "I hate the set she consorts with at these shows. There are some of the Fairharbour set—impossible people! But they boast of being on nodding terms with that arch-bounder Lord Saltash, and so everything is forgiven them."

Juliet suddenly stood up very straight. "I think I ought to tell you," she said, "that I know Lord Saltash. I have lived with the Farringmore family, as you know. He is a friend of Lord Wilchester's."

The squire turned sharply. "I hope you're going to tell me also that you can't endure the man," he said.

She made a little gesture of negation. "I never say that of anybody. I don't feel I can afford to. Life has too many contradictions—too many chances. The person we most despise to-day may prove our most valuable defender to-morrow."

"Heaven forbid!" said the squire. "You wouldn't touch such pitch as that under any circumstances. Besides, what do you want in the way of defenders? You're safe enough where you are."

Juliet was smiling whimsically. "But who knows?" she said. "I may be dismissed in disgrace to-morrow."

"No," he said briefly. "That won't happen. Your position here is secure as long as you consent to fill it."

"How rash of you," she said.

"A matter of opinion!" said Fielding. "How would you like to go over and see the cricket at Fairharbour this afternoon?"

She gave him a quick look. "Oh, is that the alternative to the races?"

He frowned. "I have already told you the races are out of the question."

"I see," said Juliet thoughtfully. "Then I am afraid the cricket-match is also—unless Mrs. Fielding wants to go."

"I'll make her go," said squire.

"No! No! Don't make her do anything—please!" begged Juliet. "That is just the worst mistake you could possibly make. To be honest, I would rather—much—go to the open-air concert at High Shale this evening."

"Along with those rowdy miners?" growled the squire. "I see enough of them on the Bench. Green of course is cracked on that subject. He'd like to set the world in order if he could."

"I admire his enterprise," said Juliet.

He nodded. "So do I. He's cussed as a mule, but he's a goer. He's also a gentleman. Have you noticed that?"

She smiled. "Of course I have."

"And I can't get my wife to see it," said the squire. "Just because—by his own idiotic choice—he occupies a humble position, she won't allow him a single decent quality. She classes them all together, when anyone can see—anyone with ordinary intelligence can see—that he is of a totally different standing from those brothers of his. He is on another plane altogether. It's self-evident. You see it at once."

"Yes," said Juliet.

He moved restlessly. "I would have placed him in his proper sphere if he'd consented to it. But he wouldn't. It's a standing grievance between us. That fellow Robin is a millstone round his neck. Miss Moore," he turned on her suddenly, "you have a wonderful knack of making people see reason. Couldn't you persuade him to let Robin go?"

"Oh no!" said Juliet quickly. "It's the very last thing I would attempt to do."

"Really!" He looked at her in genuine astonishment.

Juliet flushed. "But of course!" she said. "They belong to each other. How could Mr. Green possibly part with him? You wouldn't—surely—think much of him if he did?"

"I think he's mad not to," declared the squire. "But," he smiled at her,
"I think it's uncommonly kind of you to take that view, all the same.
I'll take you to that concert to-night if you really want to go."

"Will you? How kind!" said Juliet, turning to go. "But you won't mind if
I consult Mrs. Fielding first? I must do that."

He opened the door for her. "You are not to spoil her now," he said.
"She's been spoilt all her life by everybody."

"Except by you," said Juliet daringly.

And with that parting shot she left him, swiftly traversing the hall to the stairs without looking back.

The squire stood for some seconds looking after her. She had opposed him at practically every point, and yet she had not offended him.

"A very remarkable young woman!" he said again to himself as she passed out of his sight. "A very—gifted young woman! Ah, Dick, my friend, she'd make a rare politician's wife." And then another thought struck him and he began to laugh. "And she'll be equally charming as the helpmeet of the village schoolmaster. Egad, we can't have everything, but I think you've found your fate."