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Ruth smiled gratefully.

“You’re so thoughtful, Peg,” she said, “but I’m not really tired—not physically.”

“Then away ye go for a breath o’ air on the cliffs,” Peg suggested. “And take that dog out o’ my way for five minutes. He’s been hindering me all morning!”

Ruth called the dog to heel. She was not quite sure whether she wanted to walk on the cliffs or not. She was rarely sure of anything these days, she confessed inwardly, as she made her way along the lane which led past the Long Meadow. The collie pranced in front of her, barking lustily, but she felt that she could not run with him to-day. Slowly, almost reluctantly, she turned towards the cliffs. Then, quite suddenly, she became aware of Edmund Hersheil’s car drawn in at the open gate of the meadow. Edmund was bending over the car, packing something into the back seat. When Ruth approached he drew the tarpaulin cover over and smiled up at her.

“Just been changing a wheel,” he explained. “I drew her in here in case I was blocking the lane.”

Ruth returned his smile with an effort. Quite frankly, she did not believe his excuse, but thought that it was no concern of hers what the car was doing in the meadow.

“Going for a constitutional?” Edmund inquired, coming round

the radiator to stand beside her.

“Yes, I was,” she admitted.

“Any objections if I come along?”

“What about the car?” she pointed out.

“It’ll be safe enough where it is. Nobody every comes along here,” he replied.

She could not understand why Edmund Hersheil continued to seek her out after all that had passed between them—the scene on the cliffs, her unconcealed dislike, and her blunt refusal of his recent proposal of marriage. As he fell into step beside her, she wondered why he persisted in seeking her company.

“I’m amazed that I’ve found you with even half an hour to spare,” he said. “Miss Ruth is always such a busy woman, according to Mrs. Emery!”

“Peg and I must both work hard at Conningscliff,” Ruth said quietly.

“Even when you know that the new owner might turn you out at a moment’s notice?” he queried.

“The new owner?”

Ruth stopped to stare across at him.

“Yes,” he said, continuing his walk, “didn’t you know? Conningscliff changed hands last week.”

“I didn’t know.”

All the colour had left Ruth’s cheeks, and her hands were trembling a little as she sought in her jacket pocket for a handkerchief. Hersheil studied her closely.

“I admit it was all amazingly sudden,” he went on. “My uncle had scarcely put the place in the market before he received this offer.”

“Oh!”

Ruth was not quite sure what to say.

“The whole deal was rather tough on you, I thought,” he said, sympathy in every note of his voice. “You see, as far as I could gather, you could almost have managed the price yourself—with a little help.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded.

“Simply because the sale had gone through before even I knew anything about it!”

She continued to stare at him, inclined to doubt him even now.

“Surely the Squire knew the value of the place,” she objected. “He couldn’t see any value in the idea of the Guest House,”

Hersheil explained easily. “He looked upon his estate as good farming land—nothing more.”

“And the new owner?” Ruth asked. “I suppose—he’ll be a farmer?”

She had turned back down the lane to retrace her steps to the house, and Edmund was forced to follow her. There was a smile playing at the corners of his mouth when he replied.

“I’m not so sure. I have an idea that the new owner saw a paying proposition and seized his opportunity!”

“You mean that he will carry on the Guest House?”

Ruth could feel her heart hammering against her breast as she waited for his answer.

“I’ve an idea that he will,” Edmund said deliberately. “I have also an idea that he may see the need for a competent hostess, one, shall we say, who knows the ropes already!”

Ruth was looking straight ahead, and she said without turning:

“Are you trying to tell me that
you
have bought Conningscliff?”

He laughed abruptly.

“I wish I had been smart enough—or had enough money!” “You said just now that it went for a mere nothing,” she reminded him.

“It did,” he replied unashamedly, “but I am a comparatively poor man, Ruth. I can tell you I would wish it otherwise—for more than one reason!”

They had reached the gate of the Long Meadow, and Ruth was surprised to see a stranger in Hersheil’s car. Edmund, however, passed on up the lane with her, with nothing more than the curtest nod of recognition to the man in his car.

“You’ll stay on if he asks you, I suppose?” He put the question abruptly.

“What makes you think he might want me to stay on?” she asked.

“I told you before that I consider him a very shrewd business man. He sees a paying concern, has money to invest, visualises the expansion of the place and seizes his chance! You’ve heard the saying that money makes money, and to some people it’s everything. They do not stop to consider the—finer points. This man will make money out of Conningscliff—more money than you or I could ever have hoped to make!”

Ruth paused.

“Do you know the new owner?” she asked doubtfully.

Edmund laughed. “You know him a great deal better than I do, Ruth.”

“I know him?”

“Oh yes,” he told her, “you know him well. Your friend and confidant, John Travayne, is the new owner of Conningscliff.”

“I don’t believe it! I—it isn’t true!”

Ruth put her hand to her throat as if the constricting band that seemed to encircle it could be torn away.

“I’m afraid it is only too true, my dear Ruth. Your confidence has been badly misplaced this time,” Hersheil said.

She could not think clearly: thoughts would not come to her then, but she drew herself up instinctively as she said:

“I can’t believe that John would do anything so—so shabby.”

With this defence of Travayne she moved away, leaving Hersheil to return to his car and the stranger who awaited him.

For two hours, while she supervised the last of the Sunday afternoon tea, Ruth tried to vindicate John’s action in her own mind. Trying to tell herself, over and over again, that Edmund was capable of lying to suit himself, she knew that she was being gradually forced to admit that his statements had carried the stamp of truth. But John—John Travayne of all people! And to have bought at a price as low as she could have afforded! No, she could not believe that he had played her such a shabby trick. It was not in him to do such a thing!

She pulled herself up at the thought, pride stifling love in her heart for the moment. He had gone without a word, she reminded herself. Perhaps because he knew what he was going to Newcastle to do! “To some people money is everything!” Edmund Hersheil’s words seemed to blow across the barren stretches of her heart like a devastating wind, and they found an echo in the memory of the conversation on the rumbling haywain. “Is money everything?” she had asked John, and he had replied that it would appear so! He had made money in the East, and he sought to make more here. Perhaps it was natural enough, only— only she had confided in him her desire to own Conningscliff. He had known how much it meant to her ... He had advised her not to go to Alric Veycourt. He had done that, knowing that he meant to buy the place ...

Through the greater part of the light summer night she tossed restlessly from side to side on her narrow bed, unable to woo sleep for the ceaseless procession of thoughts which filed through her tired brain. When the dawn came she rose, pale and heavyeyed, to face the new day which was to hold so much.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

AT ANY other time the host of duties that piled themselves up for a Monday morning would have been tackled in the bright spirit with which Ruth approached most tasks, but to-day her mind had not been on her work from the start. For the first time since the doctor had proclaimed him well enough to sit in his chair, William Farday had expressed the desire to remain in bed that morning. The news had come to Ruth as an added shock, and when she hurried through to her father’s room, the anxiety in her heart made her imagine a change in him which, she told herself, she had been too busy with her own affairs to see until now.

“Stop for an hour, hinny, and sit down for a bite o’ something to eat,” Peg Emery implored at midday when the table had been set for lunch. “Ye cannot go on like this, lass, without a break o’ some sort.”

Ruth obeyed listlessly. She ate most of the food Peg placed before her without any desire for it, and when she had satisfied the sharp-eyed Mrs. Emery, she made her way to the dairy, where she stood for two hours grading the eggs which had been collected over the week-end.

It was here that John Travayne found her when he walked up from the village at three o’clock.

He spoke her name quietly, and because her eyes were misted by the difficult tears of a sudden despair, she did not turn immediately.

“Ruth,” he said again, and she turned and saw him standing in the doorway with the shafts of the afternoon sunshine behind him.

Because sometimes a heart is hardened by the very force of its own emotion, she said:

“Why have you come?”

Her tone was more hostile than she realised, because she knew that he had seen the tears gathering in her eyes.

“I told you I’d come back, Ruth,” he said. “This was a promise!”

He smiled down at her. Confident, Ruth thought, and hated herself instantly. Yet something was forcing her to probe for the

truth.

“Have you bought Conningscliff?” she demanded bluntly.

He gave her a searching glance and then said quite frankly:

“Yes. That was one of the main reasons for my visit today— to tell you I had bought the farm.”

An obscuring mist seemed to drop on Ruth at his words, wiping out everything. All that seemed real was the despairing thoughts within her. It’s true, she thought, all that Edmund Hersheil said is true!

“Ruth!” Travayne came across the stone flags and caught her hand. “What’s the matter?”

The contact steadied her. She saw him again, but she told herself that she saw him for the first time—saw him with the veil of romantic stupidity torn from her eyes—as he was, apart from her silly dreams!

“It was scarcely necessary to come all this way just to tell me that,” she heard herself saying. “You could have sent our notice through your solicitors.”

Travayne said patiently enough:

“There’s no question of notice, Ruth. I want you and your father to remain here.”

“We can’t do that”—quickly.

“Why not?”

“I can’t accept—charity.”

She threw the word at him with a vehemence that even amazed herself. Travayne drew back.

“I was hardly contemplating a charitable offer,” he said slowly. “I mean to continue the Guest House.”

Ruth did not reply. She could not. Suppressed emotion was threatening to choke her and she turned to the door as if to escape, but John was there before her.

“Ruth,” he said, and his tone was abrupt because he thought the situation demanded it. “Will you marry me?” Ruth stood as if she had been turned to stone. Then, her heart warring with her head, plunged her into confusion, and out of the depths of the melee an injured pride emerged. She forced herself to look at the man who had just made her a proposal of marriage so strange and unorthodox that the voice within her urged her to see it for what it was. She laughed a little, shaky laugh that was tinged with derision.

“Is this another business proposition?” she asked, and then anger flamed up in her. “What more do you want?” she cried.

“You have the farm now, and the Guest House you saw as a paying concern. That you went behind my back to get it is neither here nor there, but I hardly expected that you would want me to remain as hostess to assure the success of your new venture!”

Travayne was staring at her, amazed at her outburst. At last he said:

“Ruth, you’ve been upset by something. Sit down for a moment.”

“Do you expect me to protest that I have not been upset by— by your treason?” she demanded wildly. “I tell you I hate you, I never want to see you again!”

A dull flush spread over Travayne’s tanned cheek. It may have been anger—a flash of that old spirit which had driven him from the Hall in a moment of passion in his extreme youth.

“I’m sorry if I have offended you,” he said stiffly. “My intentions were entirely different than you imagine. However, since I don’t seem able to convince you of that fact, there is nothing more to be said.”

As she continued to stand mutely defiant, he turned on his heel and walked out into the sunshine.

For another hour she graded eggs blindly, unconscious of the fact that she was going over the task which had occupied her before John’s unheralded approach. It was the realisation that some of her guests were making their way back to the house from their afternoon walk that brought her face to face with the fact that it was tea-time, and that she had left Peg to cope with the meal herself.