An hour after Arthur had left the house on the Monday morning Josina went slowly up the stairs to her father's room. She was young and the stairs were shallow, but the girl's knees shook under her as she mounted them, as she mounted them one by one, while her hand trembled on the banister. Before now the knees of brave men, going on forlorn hopes, have shaken under them, but, like these men, Josina went on, she ascended step by step. She was frightened, she was horribly frightened, but she had made a vow to herself and she would carry it out. How she would carry it out, how she would find words to blurt out the truth, how she would have the courage to live through that which would follow, she did not know, she could not conceive. But her mind was fixed.

She reached the shabby landing on which two or three sheep-skins laid at the doors of the rooms served for carpet, and there, indeed, she paused awhile and pressed her hand to her side to still the beating of her heart. She gazed through the window. On the sweep below, Calamy was shaking out the cloth, while two or three hens clucked about his feet, and a cat seated at a distance watched the operation with dignity. In the field beyond the brook a dog barked joyously as it rounded up some sheep. Miss Peacock's voice, scolding a maid, came up from below. All was going on as usual, going on callous and heedless: while she--she had that before her which turned her sick and faint, which for her, timid and subject, was almost worse than death.

And with her on this forlorn hope went no comrades, no tramp of marching feet, no watching eyes of thousands, no bugle note to cheer her. Only Clement's shade--waiting.

She might still draw back. But when she had once spoken there could be no drawing back. A voice whispered in her ear that she had better think it over--just once more, better wait a little longer to see if aught would happen, revolve it once again in her mind. Possibly there might be some other, some easier, some safer way.

But she knew what that whisper meant, and she turned from the window and grasped the handle of the door. She went in. Her father was sitting beside the fire. His back was towards her, he was smoking his after-breakfast pipe. She might still retreat, or--or she might say what she liked, ask perhaps if he wanted anything. He would never suspect, never conceive in his wildest moments the thing that she had come to confess. It was not too late even now--to draw back.

She went to the other side of the table on which his elbow rested, and she stood there, steadying herself by a hand which she laid on the table. She was sick with fear, her tongue clung to her mouth, her very lips were white. But she forced herself to speak. "Father, I have something--to tell you," she said.

"Eh?" He turned sharply. "What's that?" She had not been able to control her voice, and he knew in a moment that something was wrong. "What ha' you been doing?"

Now! Now, or never! The words she had so often repeated to herself rang in her ears. "Do you know who it was," she said, "who saved you that night, sir? The night you were--hurt?"

He turned himself a little more towards her. "Who? Who it was?" he repeated. "What art talking about, girl? Why, the lad, to be sure. Who else?"

"No, sir," she said, shaking from head to foot, so that the table rocked audibly under her hand. "It was Mr. Ovington's son. And--and I love him. And he wishes to marry me."

The Squire did not say a word. He sat, his head erect still as a stone.

"And I want--to help him," she added, her voice dying away with the words. Her knees were so weak, that but for the support of the table she must have sunk on the floor.

Still the Squire did not speak. His jaw had fallen. He sat, arrested in the attitude of listening, his face partly turned from her, his pipe held stiffly in his hand. At last, "Ovington's son wants to marry you?" he repeated, in a tone so even that it might have deceived many.

"He saved your life!" she cried. She clung desperately to that.

"And you love him?"

"Oh, I do! I do!"

He paused as if he still listened, still expected more. Then in a low voice, "The girl is mad," he muttered. "My God, the girl is mad! Or I am mad! Blind and mad, like the old king! Ay, blind and mad!" He let the pipe fall from his hand to the floor, and he groped for his stick that he might rap and summon assistance. But in his agitation he could not find the stick.

Then, as he still felt for it with a flurried hand, nature or despair prompted her, and the girl who had never caressed him in her life, never taken a liberty with him, never ventured on the smallest familiarity, never gone beyond the morning and evening kiss, timidly given and frigidly received, sank on the floor and clasped his knees, pressed herself against him. "Oh, father, father! I am not mad," she cried, "I am not mad. Hear me! Oh, hear me!" A pause, and then, "I have deceived you, I am not worthy, but you are my father! I have only, only you, who can help me! Have mercy on me, for I do love him. I do love him! I----" Her voice failed her, but she continued to cling to him, to press her head against his body, mutely to implore him, and plead with him.

"My God!" he ejaculated. He sat upright, stiff, looking before him with sightless eyes; as far as he could withholding himself from her, but not actively repelling her. After an interval, "Tell me," he muttered.

That, even that, was more than she had expected from him. He had not struck her, he had not cursed her, and she took some courage. She told him in broken words, but with sufficient clearness, of her first meeting with Clement, of the gun-shot by the brook, of her narrow escape and the meetings that had followed. Once, in a burst of rage, he silenced her. "The rascal! Oh, the d--d rascal!" he cried, and she flinched. But she went on, telling him of Clement's resolve that he must be told, of that unfortunate meeting with him on the road, and then of that second encounter the same night, when Clement had come to his rescue. There he stopped her.

"How do you know?" he asked. "How do you know? How dare you say----" And now he did make a movement as if to repel her and put her from him.

But she would not be repulsed. She clung to him, telling him of the coat, of the great stains that she had seen upon it; and at last, "Why did you hide this?" broke from him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She told him that she had not known, that the part which Clement had taken on that night was new to her also.

"But you see him?" he snarled, speaking a little more like himself. "You see him!"

"Twice only--twice only since that night," she vowed. "Indeed, indeed, sir, only twice. Once he came to speak to you and tell you, but you were ill, and I would not let him. And yesterday he came to--to give me up, to say good-bye. Only twice, sir, as God sees me! He would not. He showed me that we had been wrong. He said," sobbing bitterly, "that we must be open or--or we must be nothing--nothing to one another!"

"Open? Open!" the Squire almost shouted. "D--d open! Shutting the stable door when the horse is gone. D--n his openness!" And then, "Good Lord! Good Lord!" with almost as much amazement as anger in his voice. That all this should have been going on and he know nothing about it! That ............