your face which is not quite strange to me. Are you Mrs. Lewson?"

The woman admitted that this was her name. "But how is it that you are
a stranger to me?" she asked distrustfully.

"If you have been long in Mr. Mountjoy's service," Iris replied, "you
may perhaps have heard him speak of Miss Henley?"

Mrs. Lewson's face brightened in an instant; she threw the door wide
open with a glad cry of recognition.

"Come in, Miss, come in! Who would have thought of seeing you in this
horrible place? Yes; I was the nurse who looked after you all
three--when you and Mr. Arthur and Mr. Hugh were playfellows together."
Her eyes rested longingly on her favourite of bygone days. The
sensitive sympathies of Iris interpreted that look. She prettily
touched her cheek, inviting the nurse to kiss her. At this act of
kindness the poor old woman broke down; she apologised quaintly for her
tears: "Think, Miss, how _I_ must remember that happy time--when _you_
have not forgotten it."

Shown into the parlour, the first object which the visitor noticed was
the letter that she had written to Arthur lying unopened on the table.

"Then he is really out of the house?" she said with a feeling of
relief.

He had been away from the farm for a week or more. Had he received a
warning from some other quarter? and had he wisely sought refuge in
flight? The amazement in the housekeeper's face, when she heard these