According to her promise, Jasper went that evening to meet Evelyn at the stile. Evelyn was there, and the news she had for her faithful nurse was the reverse of soothing¹.  
“You cannot stand it,” said Jasper; “you cannot demean yourself. I don’t know that I’d have done it—yes, perhaps I would—but having done it, you must stick to your guns.”
 
“Yes,” said Evelyn in a mournful tone; “I must run away. I have quite, quite, absolutely made up my mind.”
 
“And when, darling?” said Jasper, trembling a good deal.
 
“The night before the week is up. I will come to you here, Jasper, and you must take me.”
 
“Of course, love; you will come back with me to The Priory. I can hide you there as well as anywhere on earth—yes, love, as well as anywhere on earth.”
 
“Oh, I’d be so frightened! It would be so close to them all!”
 
“The closer the better, dear. If you went into any village or any town near you would be discovered; but they’d never think of looking for you 312 at The Priory. Why, darling, I have lived there unsuspected for some time now—weeks, I might say. Sylvia will not tell. You shall sleep in my bed, and I will keep you safe. Only you must bring some money, Evelyn, for mine is getting sadly short.”
 
“Yes,” said Evelyn. “I will ask Uncle Edward; he will not refuse me. He is very kind to me, and I love him better than any one on earth—better even than Jasper, because he is father’s very own brother, and because I am his heiress. He likes to talk to me about the place and what I am to do when it belongs to me. He is not angry with me when I am quite alone with him and I talk of these things; only he has taught me to say nothing about it in public. If I could be sorry for having got into this scrape it would be on his account; but there, I was not brought up with his thoughts, and I cannot think things wrong that he thinks wrong. Can you, Jasper?”
 
“No, my little wild honey-bird—not I. Well, dearie, I will meet you again to-morrow night; and now I must be going back.”
 
Evelyn returned to the house. She went up to her room, changed her shoes, tidied her hair, and came down to the drawing-room. Lady Frances was leaning back in a chair, turning over the pages of a new magazine. She called Evelyn to her side.
 
“How do you like school?” she said. Her tones were abrupt³; the eyes she fixed⁴ on the child were hard. 313
Evelyn’s worst feelings were always awakened⁵ by Lady Frances’s manner to her.
 
“I do not like it at all,” she said. “I wish to leave.”
 
“Your wishes, I am afraid, are not to be considered; all the same, you may have to leave.”
 
“Why?” asked Evelyn, turning white. She wondered if Lady Frances knew.
 
Her aunt’s eyes were fixed, as though they were gimlets, on her face.
 
“Sit down,” said Lady Frances, “and tell me how you spend your day. What class are you in? What lessons are you learning?”
 
“I am in a very low class indeed?” said Evelyn. “Mothery always said I was clever.”
 
“I do not suppose your mother knew.”
 
“Why should she not know, she who was so very clever herself? She taught me all sorts of things, and so did poor Jasper.”
 
“Ah! I am glad at least that I have removed that dreadful woman out of your path,” said Lady Frances.
 
Evelyn smiled and lowered her eyes. Her manner irritated her aunt extremely.
 
“Well,” she said, “go on; we will not discuss the fact of the form you ought to be in. What lessons do you do?”
 
“Oh, history, grammar; I suppose, the usual English subjects.”
 
“Yes, yes; but history—that is interesting. English history?” 314
“Yes, Aunt Frances.”
 
“What part of the history?”
 
“We are doing the reigns⁶ of the Edwards now.”
 
“Ah! can you tell me anything with regard to the reign⁷ of Edward I.?”
 
Evelyn colored. Lady Frances watched her.
 
“I am certain she knows,” thought the little girl. “But, oh, this is terrible! Has that awful Miss Henderson told her? What shall I do? I do not think I will wait until the week is up; I think I will run away at once.”
 
“Answer my question, Evelyn,” said her aunt.
 
Evelyn did mutter a tiny piece of information with regard to the said reign.
 
“I shall question you on your history from time to time,” said Lady Frances. “I take an interest in this school experiment. Whether it will last or not I cannot say; but I may as well say one thing—if for any reason your presence is not found suitable in the school where I have now sent you, you will go to a very different order of establishment and to a much stricter régime elsewhere.”
 
“What is a régime?” asked Evelyn.
 
“I am too tired to answer your silly questions. Now go and read your book in that corner. Do not make a noise; I have a headache.”
 
Evelyn slouched away, looking as cross and ill-tempered as a little girl could look.
 
“Audrey darling,” called her mother in a totally different tone of voice, “play me that pretty thing of Chopin’s which you know I am so fond of.” 315
Audrey approached the piano and began to play.
 
Evelyn read her book for a time without attending much to the meaning of the words. Then she observed that her uncle, who had been asleep behind his newspaper, had risen and left the room. Here was the very opportunity that she sought. If she could only get her Uncle Edward quite by himself, and when he was in the best of good humors, he might give her some money. She could not run away without money to go with. Jasper, she knew, had not a large supply. Evelyn, with all her ignorance of many things, had early in her life come into contact with the want of money. Her mother had often and often been short of funds. When Mrs. Wynford was short, the ranch⁸ did without even, at times, the necessaries of life. Evelyn had a painful remembrance of butterless breakfasts and meatless dinners; of shoes which were patched so often that they would scarcely keep out the winter snows; of little garments turned and turned again. Then money had come back, and life became smooth and pleasant; there was an abundance of good food for the various meals, and Evelyn had shoes to her heart’s content, and the sort of gay-colored garments which her mother delighted in. Yes, she understood Jasper’s appeal for money, and determined⁹ on no account to go to that good woman’s protection without a sufficient sum in hand.
 
Therefore, as Audrey was playing some of the most seductive music of that past master of the art, Chopin, and Lady Frances lay back in her chair 316 with closed eyes and listened, Evelyn left the room. She knew where to find her uncle, and going down a corridor, opened the door of his smoking-room without knocking. He was seated by the fire smoking. A newspaper lay by his side; a pile of letters which had come by the evening post were waiting to be opened. When Evelyn quietly opened the door he looked round and said:
 
“Ah, it is you, Eve. Do you want anything, my dear?”
 
“May I speak to you for a minute or two, Uncle Edward?”
 
“Certainly, my dear Evelyn; come in. What is the matter, dear?”
 
“Oh, nothing much.”
 
Evelyn went and leant up against her uncle. She had never a scrap² of fear of him, which was one reason why he liked her, and thought her far more tolerable than did his wife or Audrey. Even Audrey, who was his own child, held him in a certain awe¹⁰; but Evelyn leant comfortably now against his side, and presently she took his arm of her own accord and passed it securely round her waist.
 
“Now, that is nice,” she said; “when I lean up against you I always remember that you are father’s brother.”
 
“I am glad that you should remember that fact, Evelyn.”
 
“You are pleased with me on the whole, aren’t you, Uncle Edward?” asked the little girl. Evelyn backed her head against his shoulder as she spoke¹¹, 317 and looked into his face with her big and curious eyes.
 
“On the whole, yes.”
 
“But Aunt Frances does not like me.”
 
“You must try to win her affection, Evelyn; it will all come in good time.”
 
“It is not pleasant to be in the house with a person who does not like you, is it, Uncle Edward?”
 
“I can understand you, Evelyn; it is not pleasant.”
 
“And Audrey only half-likes me.”
 
“My dear little girl,” said her uncle, rousing himself to talk in a more serious strain, “would it not be wisest for you to give over thinking of who likes you and who does not, and to devote all your time to doing what is right?”
 
Evelyn made a wry¹³ face.
 
“I don’t care about doing what is right,” she said; “I don’t like it.”
 
Her uncle smiled.
 
“You are a strange girl; but I believe you have improved,” he said.
 
“You would be sorry if I did anything very, very naughty, Uncle Edward?”
 
“I certainly should.”
 
Evelyn lowered her eyes.
 
“He must not know. I must keep him from knowing somehow, but I wonder how I shall,” she thought.
 
“And perhaps you would be sorry,” she continued, “if I were not here—if your naughty, naughty Eve was no longer in the house?” 318
“I should. I often think of you. I——”
 
“What, Uncle Edward?”
 
“Love you, little girl.”
 
“Love me! Do you?” she asked in a tone of affection. “Do you really? Please say that again.”
 
“I love you, Evelyn.”
 
“Uncle Edward, may I give you just the tiniest kiss?”
 
“Yes, dear.”
 
Evelyn raised her soft face and pressed a light kiss on her uncle’s cheek. She was quite silent then for a minute; truth to tell, her heart was expanding and opening out and softening¹⁴, and great thrills of pure love were filling it, so that soon, soon that heart might have melted utterly¹⁵ and been no longer a hard heart of stone. But, alas¹⁶! as these good thoughts visited her, there came also the remembrance of the sin she had committed, and of the desperate measures she was about to take to save herself—for she had by no means come to the stage of confessing that sin, and by so doing getting rid of her naughtiness.
 
“Uncle Edward,” she said abruptly¹⁷, “I want you to give me a little money. I have come here to ask you. I want it all for my very own self. I want some money which no one else need know anything about.”
 
“Of course, dear, you shall have money. How much do you want?”
 
“Well, a good bit. I want to give Jasper a present.” 319
“Your old nurse?”
 
“Yes. You know it was unkind of Aunt Frances to send her away; mothery wished her to stay with me.”
 
“I know that, Evelyn, and as far as I personally am concerned, I am sorry; but your aunt knows very much more about little girls than I do.”
 
“She does not know half so much about this girl.”
 
“Well, anyhow, dear, it was her wish, and you and I must submit.”
 
“But you are sorry?”
 
“For some reasons, yes.”
 
“And you would like me to help Jasper?”
 
“Certainly. Do you know where your nurse is now, Evelyn?”
 
“I do.”
 
“Where?”
 
“I would rather not say; only, may I send her some money?”
 
“That seems reasonable enough,” thought the Squire¹⁸.
 
“How much do you want?” he asked.
 
“Would twenty pounds be too much?”
 
“I think not. It is a good deal, but she was a faithful servant. I will give you twenty pounds for her now.”
 
The Squire rose and took out his check-book.
 
“Oh, please,” said Evelyn, “I want it in gold.”
 
“But how will you send it to her?”
 
“Never, never mind; I must have it in gold.” 320
“Poor child! She is in earnest,” thought the Squire. “Perhaps the woman will come to meet her somewhere. I really cannot see why she should be tabooed from having a short interview with her old nurse. Frances and I differ on this head. Yes, I will let her have the money; the child has a good deal of heart when all is said and done.”
 
So the Squire put two little rolls, neatly¹⁹ made up in brown paper, into Evelyn’s hands.
 
“There,” he said; “it is a great deal of money to trust a little girl with, but you shall have it; only you must not ask me for any more.”
 
“Oh, what a darling you are, Uncle Edward! I feel as if I must k............