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He nodded. “Yes, I had heard. I hoped it wasn’t true.”

“Yes, it is true.” Her two hands fastened very tightly upon the back of a chair. There was something indescribably pathetic in the action. She seemed on the verge of saying more, but in the end she did not say it. She just stood looking at him with the wide grey eyes that tried so hard not to be tragic.

Jeff stood looking back with great sturdiness and not much apparent feeling. He offered no word of condolence or sympathy. Only after a very decided pause he said, “I wonder what you will do?”

“I am going to London,” she said.

“Soon?” Jeff’s voice was curt, almost gruff.

“Yes, very soon.” She hesitated momentarily, then went on rapidly, as if it were a relief to tell someone. “My father’s life was insured. It has left my stepmother enough to live on; but, of course, not here. The place is mortgaged up to the hilt. I have nothing at all. I have got to make my own living.”

“You?” said Jeff.

She smiled again faintly, “Yes, I. What is there in that? Lots of women work for their living.”

“You are not going to work for yours,” he said.

She thrust the chair from her with a quick little movement of the hands. “I would begin to-morrow–if I only knew how. But I don’t–yet. I’ve got to look about me for a little. I am going first to a cousin at Kensington.”

“Who doesn’t want you,” said Jeff.

She looked at him in sharp surprise. “Who–who told you that?”

“You did,” he said doggedly. “At least, you told Mr. Chesyl–in my presence.”

“Ah, I remember!” She uttered a tremulous little laugh. “That was the day I caught you eavesdropping and ordered you off your own ground.”

“It was,” said Jeff. “I heard several things that day, and I guessed–other things.” He paused, still looking straight at her. “Miss Elliot,” he said, “wouldn’t it be easier for you to marry than to work for your living?”

The pretty brows went up in astonishment. “Oh!” she said, in quick confusion. “You heard that too?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier?” persisted Jeff in his slow, stubborn way.

She shook her head swiftly and vehemently. “I shall never marry Mr. Chesyl,” she said with determination.

“Where is he?” asked Jeff.

The soft colour rose in her face at the question. She looked away from him for the first time. “I don’t quite know where he is. I believe he is up north somewhere–in Scotland.”

“He knows what has been happening here?” questioned Jeff.

She made a slight movement as of protest. “No doubt,” she said in a low voice.

Jeff’s square jaw hardened. Abruptly he thrust Chesyl out of the conversation. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “That isn’t what I came to talk about. May I tell you just what I have come for? Will you give me a patient hearing?”

She turned to him again in renewed surprise. “Of course,” she said.

His dark eyes were upon her. “It may not please you,” he said slowly, “though I ask you to believe that it is not my intention to give you offence.”

“But, of course, I know you would not,” she said.

Jeff’s fingers clenched upon his riding-switch. He spoke with difficulty, but not without a certain native dignity that made him impressive. “I have come,” he said, “just to say to you that if it is possible that no one in your own world is wanting you, I am wanting you. All that I have is absolutely at your disposal. I heard you say–that day–that you would like to be a farmer’s wife. Well–if you really meant it–you have your opportunity.”

“Mr. Ironside!” She was gazing at him in wide-eyed amazement.

A dark flush rose in his swarthy face under her eyes, “I had to say it,” he said with heavy deliberation, “though I know I’m only hammering nails into my own coffin. I had to take my only chance of telling you. Of course, I know you won’t listen. I’m not of your sort–respectable enough, but not quite–not quite–” He broke off grimly, and for an instant his teeth showed clenched upon his lower lip. “But if by any chance, when everything else has failed,” resolutely he went on, “you could bring yourself to think of me–in that way, I shall always be ready, quite ready, for you. That’s what I came to say.”