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A few seconds later, Doris opened her eyes with a start at the touch of his hand on her shoulder.

She sat up sharply. “Oh, Jeff, how you startled me!”

It was the first time she had ever seen him in her little sitting-room, though she had more than once invited him thither. His presence at that moment was for some reason peculiarly disconcerting.

“I am sorry,” he said, in his slow way. “The door was half open, and I saw you were asleep. I don’t think you are wise to sit down in your wet clothes. I have brought you some milk and brandy.”

“Oh, but I never take brandy,” she said, collecting herself with a little smile and rising. “It’s very kind of you, Jeff. But I can’t drink it, really. It would go straight to my head.”

“You must drink it,” said Jeff.

He presented it to her with the words, but Doris backed away half-laughing.

“No, really, Jeff! I’ll go and have a hot bath. That will do quite as well.”

“You must drink this first,” said Jeff.

There was a dogged note in his voice, and at sound of it Doris’s brows went up, and her smile passed.

“I mean it,” said Jeff, setting cup and saucer on the table before her. “I can’t run the risk of having you laid up. Drink it now, before it gets cold!”

A little gleam of mutiny shone in Doris’s eyes. “My dear Jeff,” she said very decidedly. “I have told you already that I do not drink brandy. I am going to have a hot bath and change, and after that I will have some tea. But I draw the line at hot grog. So, please, take it away! Give it to Granny Grimshaw! It would do her more good.”

She smiled again suddenly and winningly with the words. After all it was absurd to be vexed over such a trifle.

But, to her amazement, Jeff’s face hardened. He stepped to her, and, as if she had been a child, took her by the shoulders, and put her down into a chair by the table.

“Doris,” he said, and his voice sounded deep and stern above her head, “I may not get much out of my bargain, but I think I may claim obedience at least. There is not enough brandy there to hurt you, and I wish you to take it.”

She stiffened at his action, as if she would actively resist; but she only became rigid under his hands.

There followed a tense and painful silence. Then without a word Doris took the cup and raised it unsteadily to her lips. In the same moment Jeff took his hands from her shoulders, straightened himself, and in silence left the room.

CHAPTER X

CHRISTMAS EVE

It was only a small episode, but it made an impression upon Doris that she was slow to forget. It was not that she resented the assertion of authority. She had the fairness to admit his right, but in a very subtle fashion it hurt her. It made her feel more than ever the hollowness of the bargain, to which he had made such grim allusion. It added, moreover, to her uneasiness, making her suspect that he was fully as dissatisfied as she. Yet, in face of the stony front he presented she could not continue to proffer her friendship. He seemed to have no use for it. He seemed, in fact, to avoid her, and the old shyness that had oppressed her in the beginning returned upon her fourfold. She admitted to herself that she was becoming afraid of the man. The very sound of his voice made her heart beat thick and hard, and each succeeding day witnessed a diminishing of her confidence.

Under these circumstances she withdrew more and more into her solitude, and it was with something like dismay that she received the news from Granny Grimshaw at the beginning of Christmas week that it was Jeff’s custom to entertain two or three of his farmer friends at supper on Christmas Eve.