“You needn’t go on!” interrupted Desford, quizzing him. “I know just what you are trying to say! I must take care I don’t fall into yet another scrape, mustn’t I?”

“Yes, my lord, and I hope you will—though it don’t look to me, the way things is shaping, that you will!”

But Desford only laughed, and went into the inn. The mistress of the establishment had taken Miss Steane upstairs, and when she presently joined his lordship in the coffee-room she had washed her face, tidied her unruly hair, and was carrying her cloak over her arm. She looked much more presentable, but the round dress of faded pink cambric which she wore was rather crumpled, besides being muddied round the hem, and in no way became her. She was looking very grave, but when she saw the chicken, and the tongue, and the raspberries on the table her eyes brightened perceptibly, and she said gratefully: “Oh, thank you, sir! I am very much obliged to you! I ran away before breakfast, and you can’t think how hungry I am!”

She then sat down at the table, and proceeded to make a hearty meal. Desford, who was not at all hungry, sat watching her, his tankard in his hand, thinking that for all her nineteen years she was very little removed from childhood. While she ate he forbore to question her, but when she came to the end of her nuncheon, and said that she now felt much better, he said: “Do you feel sufficiently restored to tell me all about it? I wish you will!”

Her brightened eyes clouded, but after a slight hesitation she said: “If I tell you why I’ve run away, will you take me to London, sir?”

He laughed. “I am making no rash promises—except to carry you straight back to Maplewood if you don’t tell me!”

She said with quaint dignity, but as though she had a lump in her throat: “I cannot believe that you would do anything so—so unhandsome!”

“No, I am sure you cannot,” he said sympathetically. “But you must consider my position, you know! Recollect that all I know at this present is that although you told me last night that you were not very happy I am persuaded you had no intention then of running away. Yet today I come upon you, in a good deal of distress, having apparently reached a sudden decision to leave your aunt. Did you perhaps have a quarrel with her, fly up into the boughs, and run away without giving yourself time to consider whether she had really been unkind enough to warrant your taking such an extreme course? Or whether she too had lost her temper, and had said much more than she meant?”

She looked forlornly at him, and gave her head a shake. “We didn’t quarrel. I didn’t even quarrel with Corinna. Or with Lucasta. And it wasn’t such a sudden decision. I’ve wished desperately—oh, almost from the moment my aunt took me to Maplewood!—to escape. Only whenever I ventured to ask my aunt if she would help me to find a situation where I could earn my own bread she always scolded me for being ungrateful, and—and said I should soon wish myself back at Maplewood, because I was fit for nothing but a—a menial position.” She paused, and, after a moment or two, said rather hopelessly: “I can’t explain it to you. I daresay you wouldn’t understand if I could, because you have never been so poor that you were obliged to hang on anyone’s sleeve, and try to be grateful for a worn-out ribbon, or a scrap of torn lace which one of your cousins gave you, instead of throwing it away.”

“No,” he replied. “But you are mistaken when you say that I don’t understand. I have seen all too many of such cases as you describe, and have sincerely pitied the victims of this so-called charity, who are expected to give unremitting service to show their gratitude for—” He broke off, for she had winced, and turned away her face. “What have I said to upset you?” he asked. “Believe me, I had no intention of doing so!”

“Oh, no!” she said, in a stifled voice. “I beg your pardon! It was stupid of me to care for it, but that word brought it all back to me, like—like a stab! Lucasta said I was well-named, and my aunt s-said: ‘ Very true, my love!’ and that in future I should be called Charity, to keep me in mind of the fact that that is what I am—a charity girl!”

“What a griffin!” he exclaimed disdainfully. “But she won’t call you Charity, you know! Depend upon it, she wouldn’t wish people to think her spiteful!”

“They wouldn’t. Because it is my name!” she disclosed tragically. “I know I told you it was Cherry, but it wasn’t a fubbery, sir, to say that, because I have always been called Cherry.”

“I see. Do you know, I like Charity better than Cherry? I think it is a very pretty name.”

“You wouldn’t think so if it was your name, and true!”

“I suppose I shouldn’t,” he admitted. “But what did you do to bring down all this ill-will upon your head?”

“Corinna was on the listen last night, when we talked together on the stairs,” she said. “She is the most odious, humbugging little cat imaginable, and if you think I shouldn’t say such a thing of her I am sorry, but it is true! I was used to think her the most amiable of my cousins, and—and my friend! And even though I did know that she was a shocking fibster, and not in the least above carrying tales against Oenone to my aunt, I never dreamed she would do the same by me! Well—well, there was some excuse for her trying for revenge against Oenone, because Oenone is a very disagreeable girl, and for ever picking out grievances, and trying to set my aunt against her sisters. But—” Her eyes filled with tears, which she made haste to brush away—“she—she had no cause to do me a mischief! But—but she twisted everything I said to you, sir, m-making it seem quite different from what I did say! She even said that you wouldn’t have come upstairs if I hadn’t th-thrown out lures to you! Which I didn’t! I didn’t!”

“On the contrary! You begged me not to come upstairs!” he said, smiling.

“Yes, and so I told them, but neither my aunt nor Lucasta would believe me. They—they accused me of being a—a designing little squirrel, and my aunt read me a scold about g-girls like me ending up in the Magdalen: and when I asked her what the Magdalen is, she said that if I continued to make sheep’s eyes at every man that crossed my path I should very soon discover what it is. But I don’t, I don’t!”she said vehemently. “It wasn’t my fault that you came up to talk to me last night, and it wasn’t my fault that Sir John Thorley took me up in his chaise and so very kindly drove me back to Maplewood, the day he overtook me walking back from the village in the rain; and it wasn’t my fault that Mr Rainham came over to talk to me when I brought Dianeme and Tom down to the drawing-room one evening! I did not put myself forward! I sat down, just as my aunt bade me, in a chair against the wall, and made not the least push to keep him beside me! I promise you I didn’t, sir!” Her tears brimmed over, but she brushed them away, and said: “It was nothing but kindness on their parts, and to say that I lured either of them away from Lucasta is wickedly unjust!”

Since he had himself succumbed to the unconscious appeal of her big eyes, and had been moved to compassion by her forlorn aspect, he could readily understand the feelings that had prompted two gentlemen, whom he guessed to be admirers of Lucasta, to pay her a little attention. He thought, with a sardonic curl of his lips, that Lady Bugle was no wiser than a wet-goose; and wondered how many of Lucasta’s court would have paid any attention to her little cousin had Cherry been suitably attired, and treated by Lady Bugle with the affection that lady showed towards Lucasta. Not many, he guessed, for, although she had an innocent charm, she was no more than a candle to the sun of Lucasta’s beauty; and if she had been happy she would have roused no chivalrous emotions in any male breast. These reflections, however, he kept to himself, setting himself instead to the task of soothing her agitation, prior to doing what lay within his power to convince her that a return to her house of bondage would be preferable to her present scheme.

With the first of these objects in view, he encouraged her to unburden herself of her wrongs, thinking that to be allowed to pour out her troubles would sensibly allay whatever feelings of hurt and injustice had overset her. He suspected that these might have been exaggerated in her mind by what had obviously been a pulling of caps; but by the time she had been induced to describe what her life had been at Maplewood there was no hint of a smile in his eyes, and no scepticism in his mind.

For she did not answer his questions willingly, and she seemed always to be able to find excuses for the many unkindnesses she had received at Maplewood. Nor did she resent the demands that had been made on her: she felt it was only right that she should repay her aunt’s generosity by performing whatever services were required of her; but when she said simply: “I would do anything if only she would love me a little, and just once say thank you!” he thought he had never heard a sadder utterance.

It was obvious that Lady Bugle had seen in her not an orphaned niece to be cherished, but a household slave, to be made to fetch and carry all day long, to wait not only on her aunt but on her cousins as well, and to mind the two eldest nursery children whenever Nurse desired her to do so. He suspected that if she had been less docile and less easily dismayed she would have fared better at Maplewood: he had been standing close enough to Lady Bugle on the previous evening to observe her when she approached her husband, and said something pretty sharp to him under her breath. He had not heard what she had said, but that she had issued an order was patent, for Sir Thomas had at first expostulated, and then gone off to do her bidding, and Desford had written her down then and there as one of those overbearing females who would tyrannize over anyone too meek or too scared to withstand her. It had at first surprised him to learn that his brief meeting with Cherry had brought down on her head such a venomous scold, but the more he studied the sweet little face before him the less surprised did he feel that the ambitious mother and daughter should have been so furious to learn that he had been sufficiently attracted by Cherry to have gone upstairs to talk to her. Lucasta was a Beauty, but Cherry was by far the more taking.

While she told her story, at least half of his brain was occupied in trying to think what to do for her. It had not taken long to make him abandon his original intention of restoring her to her aunt, and he wasted no eloquence on attempting to persuade her to agree to such a course. A fleeting notion of placing her in Lady Emborough’s care no sooner occurred to him than he banished it; and when he suggested that she should return to Miss Fletching she shook her head, saying that nothing would prevail upon her to make any more demands on that lady’s kindness.

“Don’t you think you might be very useful to her?” he coaxed. “As a teacher, perhaps?”

“No,” she replied. Suddenly her eyes lost their despairing look, and danced mischievously. She giggled, and said: “I shouldn’t be in the least useful, and certainly not as a teacher! I am not at all bookish, and although I do know how to play on the pianoforte I don’t play at all well! I have no aptitude for languages, either, or for painting, and my sums are always wrong. So you see—!”

It was certainly daunting. He could not help laughing, but he said: “Well, now that you’ve told me all the things you can’t do, tell me what you can do!”

The cloud descended again on her brow. She said: “Nothing—nothing of a genteel nature. My aunt says I am only fitted to perform menial tasks, and I suppose that is true. But while I have been at Maplewood I have learnt a great deal about housekeeping, and I know I can take care of sick old ladies, because when old Lady Bugle became too ill to leave her bed there were days when she wouldn’t let anyone enter her room except me. And I think she liked me, because, though she pinched at me a good deal—she was nearly always as cross as crabs, poor old lady—she never ripped up at me as she did at my aunt, and Lucasta, and Oenone, or accuse me of wishing her dead. So I thought that I could very likely be a comfort to my grandfather. I believe he lives quite alone, except for the servants, which must be excessively melancholy for him. Don’t you think so, sir?”

“I should certainly find it so, but your grandfather is said to be a—a confirmed recluse. I have never met him, but if the stories that are told about him are true he is not a very amiable person. After all, you told me yourself that he had written a very disobliging reply to Miss Fletching’s letter, didn’t you?”