I was still engaged upon my breakfast when I heard the of dishes and the ’s footfall as she passed toward her new lodger’s room.  An instant she had rushed down the passage and burst in upon me with uplifted hand and startled eyes.  “Lord ’a mercy, sir!” she cried, “and asking your pardon for troubling you, but I’m feared o’ the young leddy, sir; she is not in her room.”  
“Why, there she is,” said I, up and glancing through the .  “She has gone back for the flowers she left upon the bank.”
 
“Oh, sir, see her boots and her dress!” cried the landlady, wildly.  “I wish her mother was here, sir—I do.  Where she has been is more than I , but her bed has not been lain on this night.”
 
“She has felt restless, doubtless, and went for a walk, though the hour was certainly a strange one.”
 
Mrs. Adams pursed her lip and shook her head.  But then as she stood at the casement, the girl beneath looked smilingly up at her and to her with a merry gesture to open the window.
 
“Have you my tea there?” she asked in a rich, clear voice, with a touch of the French accent.
 
“It is in your room, miss.”
 
“Look at my boots, Mrs. Adams!” she cried, thrusting them out from under her skirt.  “These fells of yours are dreadful places—effroyable—one inch, two inch; never have I seen such mud!  My dress, too—voilà!”
 
“Eh, miss, but you are in a pickle,” cried the landlady, as she gazed down at the bedraggled gown.  “But you must be main weary and heavy for sleep.”
 
“No, no,” she answered, laughingly, “I care not for sleep.  What is sleep? it is a little death—voilà .  But for me to walk, to run, to beathe the air—that is to live.  I was not tired, and so all night I have explored these fells of Yorkshire.”
 
“Lord ’a mercy, miss, and where did you go?” asked Mrs. Adams.
 
She waved her hand round in a gesture which included the whole western horizon.  “There,” she cried.  “O comme elles sont tristes et sauvages, ces collines!  But I have flowers here.  You will give me water, will you not?  They will else.”  She gathered her treasures in her lap, and a moment later we heard her light, springy footfall upon the stair.
 
So she had been out all night, this strange woman.  What could have taken her from her room on to the , wind-swept hills?  Could it be merely the restlessness, the love of adventure of a young girl?  Or was there, possibly, some deeper meaning in this nocturnal journey?
 
Deep as were the mysteries which my studies had taught me to solve, here was a human problem which for the moment at least was beyond my comprehension.  I had walked out on the in the forenoon, and on my return, as I topped the brow that overlooks the little town, I saw my fellow-lodger some little distance off among the gorse.  She had raised a light easel in front of her, and with papered board laid across it, was preparing to paint the magnificent landscape of rock and moor which stretched away in front of her.  As I watched her I saw that she was looking anxiously to right and left.  Close by me a pool of water had formed in a hollow.  Dipping the cup of my pocket-flask into it, I carried it across to her.
 
“Miss Cameron, I believe,” said I.  “I am your fellow-lodger.  Upperton is my name.  We must introduce ourselves in these wilds if we are not to be for ever strangers.”
 
“Oh, then, you live also with Mrs. Adams!” she cried.  “I had thought that there were none but peasants in this strange place.”
 
“I am a visitor, like yourself,” I answered.  “I am a student, and have come for quiet and , which my studies demand.”
 
“Quiet, indeed!” said she, glancing round at the vast circle of silent , with the one tiny line of grey cottages which sloped down beneath us.
 
“And yet not quiet enough,” I answered, laughing, “for I have been forced to move further into the fells for the absolute peace which I require.”
 
“Have you, then, built a house upon the fells?” she asked, arching her .
 
“I have, and hope within a few days to occupy it.”
 
“Ah, but that is triste,” she cried.  “And where is it, then, this house which you have built?”
 
“It is over yonder,” I answered.  “See that stream which lies like a silver band upon the distant moor?  It is the Gaster Beck, and it runs through Gaster Fell.”
 
She started, and turned upon me her great dark, questioning eyes with a look in which surprise, incredulity, and something to horror seemed to be struggling for mastery.
 
“And you will live on the Gaster Fell?” she cried.
 
“So I have planned.  But what do you know of Gaster Fell, Miss Cameron?” I asked.  “I had thought that you were a stranger in these parts.”
 
“Indeed, I have never been here before,” she answered.  “But I have heard my brother talk of these Yorkshire moors; and, if I mistake not, I have heard him name this very one as the wildest and most of them all.”
 
“Very likely,” said I, carelessly.  “It is indeed a place.”
 
“Then why live there?” she cried, eagerly.  “Consider the loneliness, the barrenness, the want of all comfort and of all aid, should aid be needed.”
 
“Aid!  What aid should be needed on Gaster Fell?”
 
She looked down and her shoulders.  “Sickness may come in all places,” said she.  “If I were a man I do not think I would live alone on Gaster Fell.”
 
“I have braved worse dangers than that,” said I, laughing; “but I fear that your picture will be spoiled, for the clouds are up, and already I feel a few raindrops.”
 
Indeed, it was high time we were on our way to shelter, for even as I there came the sudden, steady swish of the shower.  Laughing p. 156merrily, my companion threw her light shawl over her head, and, seizing picture and easel, ran with the grace of a young down the furze-clad slope, while I followed after with camp-stool and paint-box.
 
* * * * *
 
It was the eve of my departure from Kirkby-Malhouse that we sat upon the green bank in the garden, she with dark dreamy eyes looking sadly out over the sombre fells; while I, with a book upon my knee, glanced ............