it very considerably too; for the full blow would have knocked his
hand abroad, and in reality it is only made black-and-blue like.'

'How thankful I am!' said Stephen.

The perplexed Unity looked at him with her mouth rather than with
her eyes.

'That will do, Unity,' said Elfride magisterially; and the two
maids passed on.

'Elfride, do you forgive me?' said Stephen with a faint smile.
'No man is fair in love;' and he took her fingers lightly in his
own.

With her head thrown sideways in the Greuze attitude, she looked a
tender reproach at his doubt and pressed his hand. Stephen
returned the pressure threefold, then hastily went off to his
father's cottage by the wall of Endelstow Park.

'Elfride, what have you to say to this?' inquired her father,
coming up immediately Stephen had retired.

With feminine quickness she grasped at any straw that would enable
her to plead his cause. 'He had told me of it,' she faltered; 'so
that it is not a discovery in spite of him. He was just coming in
to tell you.'

'COMING to tell! Why hadn't he already told? I object as much, if
not more, to his underhand concealment of this, than I do to the