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She was in for a fever, she knew she was. It had been coming on for days.

She would say what she had to say and then she would go. She put her hand under her shawl and into the pocket of her skirt and withdrew a large envelope and, bending slightly forward, she handed it to him, saying, "I won't be needing these now.

Perhaps you'll keep them, an' . an' give them to your son. "

He took the envelope from her and without making any comment extracted the two parchments from within it she had kept the letter; that was hers and he looked at them. One was a temporary deed to a house called Fieldbum Place in the County of Northumberland. It was situated in four acres of freehold ground, and its cost, together with furnishings was eleven hundred pounds; the other was a letter to the effect that his son was leaving one thou sand pounds a year to Cecilia Brodie, to be made payable in monthly installments. He looked up at her.

"Have you read these?"

She shook her head, "No; I ... I can't read much. But... but I know what they are; he ... he told me."

"And you are returning them?"

"Yes, Sir."

He stared at her for a moment. This girl had nothing, nothing in the wide world, and her future, as far as he could gather, held nothing; and yet she was willing to give up what a great many would consider a fortune. She could have closed her eyes to the child's need of him and gone on the assumption that children soon forget, and very likely in better surroundings, such as the one this deed indicated, the child would have forgotten him and this house. But because the child was unhappy she brought him back and, therefore, renounced a life which must appear like heaven compared with that which she was enduring. He folded the deeds up and, returning them to the envelope, he handed them to her, saying, "You must give these to my son himself. It will be for him to say whether he will take them or not."

Her eyes widened slightly and she murmured, "I ... I thought he would be gone. He ... he said he was sailin' the day."

"Not until this evening. He is to leave at noon."

He rose to his feet, and when she also made to rise he put his hand out towards her, saying, "Please stay seated."

Going to a row of small knobs that were attached to the wall behind the red-corded bell rope, he pulled on the third one; then walking towards her again he stood looking down at her, and he moved his tongue over his lips a number of times before he said, "May I say that I am deeply grateful for your action, and that I understand what it must have taken for you to come to this decision. If there is anything, anytime, that I can do for you or yours you have only to call on me. You understand?"

She moved her head once and said, "Yes, Sir. And thank you."

He still continued to stare at her; then he said, "If my son cannot induce you to accept" --he pointed to the envelope lying on her lap"--then I will see that provision is made for you as before."

Again she said, "Thank you. Sir."

She was now attacked by a fit of coughing that racked her chest and he said with some concern, "You must have something warm to drink." And when the door opened at this moment and Cunningham appeared he turned to him, saying, "Tell Master Clive to attend me here immediately. Also tell Hatton to bring a hot beverage for my... my guest."

"Yes, Sir." Cunningham did not once let his eyes rest on the figure on the couch but turned swiftly and went into the hall; and after giving Hatton the order he hurried up the stairs and to Master dive's bedroom.

After knocking on the door and being bidden to enter he said, "The master wishes you to attend him in the drawing room. Sir."

"Very well, Cunnings."

"He ... I... I think I'd better warn you. Sir, there ... there is a lady with him."

"Yes, Cunnings?"

"She ... she's brought Master Richard back. Sir. He is up in the nursery now."

Glive stared at the man, and Cunningham said below his breath, "I ... I thought it only fair to warn you. Sir."

"Thank you, Cunnings. Thank you."

When the door had closed on the valet Clive stood still in the middle of the room. She had brought the child back. Why? Whyf She should at this moment have been on her way to the house. Now he'd have to look on her again, and it could only add to his other torment. But why had she brought the child back? She wanted him. Crawling through that hole for years to see him, the hunger in her heart deeper than the hunger in her belly--why had she done it? He looked round the room as if searching tor an answer. Then going to the valise, the same he had left the house with when he went on his first voyage, he closed it; then straightening his cravat and pulling down the skirt of his coat, he went out of the room and down the stairs and into the drawing room.

His father looked at him over the distance, and then he turned to the girl on the couch and bowed slightly to her before walking down the room. He did not pause as he passed his son but he looked hard at him;

then, his back straight as always, his head held erect, he went out, and his son would have been surprised to know that the deep private thoughts in his father's mind at this moment were as near his own as was possible.

When he reached the couch he slowly sat down on it, but some distance from her, and, like his father, he asked her, "Why have you brought him back?"

She looked at his grey, grave face. It didn't look young anymore. She said, "He ... he wasn't happy;

he was fretting as I knew he would. And . and what's more"--she made a slow, sad movement with her head" --he never took to me. He even had a dislike for me. "

"Oh nol Nol" He moved an inch or two towards her and bent his head forward.

"You're imagining things; he could never dislike you." He did not add,

"No one could dislike you ... except, except Isa- belle."

"He did. It was ... it was hard to stomach but he did, until this very mornin', when he knew I was bringing ... bringing him home." She stared into the deep grey eyes that were holding hers and some part of her was surprised that she was talking to him in an ordinary way, as she would to Matthew, not waiting for the right words to come to her, but just saying what was in her mind. She said now, "You'll let him stay here, you won't send him any place else will you?" And he asked quietly, "Where else could I send him?"

She began to cough again, and he screwed up his face at the harshness of it and said, "You have a cold" ; and at that moment there was a tap on the door. It opened and Hatton came in, followed by the second footman bearing a tray. Hatton now placed a small table to the side of the couch and, putting the tray on it, said, as if speaking to a member of the household, "I hope you find all you need ... Miss." And she looked at him and said, "Thank you."

When the servants had gone and she had made no attempt to drink the soup, or eat the hot rolls and odd-shaped pieces on the plate that looked like chicken, he bent over and pulled the table further towards her and said gently, "Drink the soup," and handed her the bowl and the spoon, and she found herself drinking it gratefully.

She had an odd feeling about her as if she weren't really here and didn't care where she was, and the feeling was growing every minute.

She did not stand any longer in awe of the servants or His Lordship, and certainly not of him sitting there. She was halfway through the soup when she remembered about the papers. They had fallen from her lap onto the couch, and she picked them up and handed them to him, saying, "I... I won't need these now."

"That's nonsense." His voice was sharp.

"You'll need them as much as before; you can't possibly stay in that place any longer. You must accept them."

She shook her head as she gulped a spoonful of soup, "No, no; I couldn't. It wouldn't be right. Anyway, I just couldn't. An'..."

she turned towards him and there was a deep sad softness in her face now as she added, "I'd be out of me element. I wouldn't know what to do, or how to go on. And what's more I'd be among strangers."

He was about to reply, "You'll never be short of friends when you've got money," but he resisted and said firmly, "They're yours, the house and the money have both been made over to you."

"No, no." She was again shaking her head.

"Your father is goin' to do what he did afore, an that'll be enough. I want nothin' more, just enough to keep the hairns--the children--warm inside and out until they're able to fend for themselves." She took another spoonful of soup, then finished conversationally in a slow quiet tone, "It won't be long now. Nellie's going on six, Sarah's ten.

She should be out in place, but she's not strong, Sarah."

He stared at her. She was talking as she had never talked to him, and she was more beautiful in this moment than he had ever seen her. Her face was flushed with the chill she had, he supposed; her lips were moist and tempting, her eyes were deep and warm; even the scar on her cheek was like a large beauty spot. God! he mustn't think about the scar, or the cause of it. It was over, finished. He had escaped.

Thanks to the miller. Where would he be now but for the miller? And the miller loved her. He was a married man and he loved her. Why hadn't he married her? There must have been a reason. Perhaps he hadn't known her long. But there was one thing certain: he knew her now and wanted her. There were all kinds and shades of wanting, there were all kinds and shades of love. Why had this girl been brought into the pattern of his life?

Or, at least, if she'd had to come, why couldn't she have come as one of his own class? But what was his class now? He had fallen between two stools, and today he was climbing back onto the lesser of them, from where he'd rise, he supposed, to the glorified position of captain some day. As a captain of a ship he could have married her; as first mate he could have married her; but as captain or first mate he was still, underneath the skin, Clive John James Horatio Fischel, and heavily conscious that one day he'd bear the title of lord.

He now asked softly under his breath, "How is the miller?" and she answered, "He was well when I last saw him."

"I'll ... I'll never be able to repay him. Will you tell him that?"

She made no answer to this and he went on, "Nor to forgive myself for all the wrong I have done you." His head was bowed deep, and she looked at it. His hair was very fair, almost silver. She had the crazy desire to put her hand out and stroke it. What was wrong with her? Was she forgetting what this man had once done to her? Yes, perhaps;

anyway it wasn't good to go on harboring animosity. She said softly and very, very gently, "You mustn't blame yourself anymore. You know, I was thinkin' in the night about something that me da said." There she was going again, talking ordinary-like to him. What was the matter with her? But she couldn't stop herself, and so she went on, "He used to say, " Time is to the mind as goose fat to a rough chest," and so about this time next year things'll look different. And I was thinkin'

an' all that it wasn't really you who started all this, it was our Jimmy. You see...." She now leaned her head against the back of the couch because she felt it was about to wobble. She was feeling slightly dizzy, but she continued, "It started with him showing Joe how to set a trap for a rabbit. And yet I can't blame Jimmy, because we'd have been hard put many a time for a bite if it hadn't have been for Jimmy and his trap. No, I kept think- in' in the night, although it seemed to start with Jimmy yet there was another cause for it. And it wasn't me ma and da dying either, because we had been hungry when they were alive, yet somehow it was being hungry." She turned her head and looked at him.

"Yes, it was being hungry, I think, that started it in the first place.

If people had enough to eat and could keep warm I don't think things would happen, do you?"

"Oh, my dearl" He moved his head in wide sweeps as she finished, "So what I mean is, you're not to blame yourself, 'cos you know...." She brought her body up straight on the couch, but she bowed her I head deeply forward towards him as she ended finally, "I'm ... I'm not sorry I had the hairn."

When he lifted himself towards her and grabbed her hands he startled her, but she left them in his. Their faces were but inches apart, and now, as he slowly raised her hands to his mouth, her heart pounded and the noise was loud in her ears as if she were standing near the river when it was in spate. His lips were pressed against her red rough knuckles.

[I They were warm, hot, and when they moved over her fingertips she felt it was too much to bear and she gasped and turned her head away on to her shoulder as her body stiffened against her wild, mad thoughts.

She felt her hands returned to her lap. Then he was standing up; and when he spoke she dropped her head back on to her shoulders and stared at him.

"Good-bye, Cecilia. Think of me kindly, will you?" His face floated mistily before her gaze. She moved her head twice; then in answer she said one word. She didn't know whether she spoke it aloud or not, but what she said was, "Always."

She closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them he was no longer there. When she heard the door close she turned her head in its direction; he was gone.

She brought her head round again and once more she leaned it against the head of the couch and stared towards the great blazing fire, and she knew he needn't have gone. If she had been scheming enough, or clever enough, she could have kept him and he would have been glad to stay. Yes, she knew that;

right deep within her she knew that he would have been glad to stay, and with her, an ignorant girl, who could only just write her name.

She didn't hear His Lordship enter the room; she didn't know he was standing to the side of her until he spoke, and when he asked, "You drank your soup?" she pulled herself to the edge of the couch, saying,

"Yes, thank you. Sir." And now she rose, and she knew that if she didn't take a pull at herself she'd pass out, as she had done once before, right at his feet. And it mustn't happen a second time, for they would say she was just doing it. Yes, they would say that.