“How nice of him!” said Juliet.  “And where do the cobblers live?”

“You can’t see it from here.  It’s just on the other side of the workings—­a horribly squalid place.  I never go near it.  It’s called High Shale, but it’s very low really, right in a pocket of the hills, and very unhealthy.  You can see the smoke hanging over there now.  The cottages are wretched places, and the people who live in them—­words fail!  Ashcott, the agent and manager of the mines, says they are quite hopeless, and so they are.  They are just like pigs in a sty.”

“Poor dears!” said Juliet.

“Oh, they’re horrors!” declared Mrs. Fielding.  “They fling stones at the car if we go within half-a-mile of them.  And they are such a drunken set.  Go round the other way, Jack,—­round by Fairharbour!  Miss Moore will enjoy that.”

“Thank you,” said Juliet, with her friendly smile.  “I am enjoying it very much.”

They travelled forty miles before they ran back again into Little Shale, and the children were reassembling for afternoon school as they neared the Court gates.

“Put me down here!” Juliet said.  “I can run down the hill.  It isn’t worth while coming those few yards and having to turn the car.”

“I want you to lunch with me,” said Mrs. Fielding.

“Oh, thank you very much.  Not to-day.  I really must get back.  I’ve got to buy cakes for tea,” laughed Juliet.

Mrs. Fielding stopped the car abruptly.  “I’m not going to press you, or you’ll never come near me again,” she said.  “I never press people to do what they obviously don’t want to.  Do you think you would hate living with me, Miss Moore?  Or are you still giving the matter your consideration?”

There was a hint of wistfulness in the arrogant voice that somehow touched Juliet.

She sat silent for a moment; then:  “If I might come to you for a week on trial,” she said.  “You won’t pay me anything of course.  I think we should know by that time if it were likely to answer or not.”

“When will you come?” said Mrs. Fielding.

“Just when you like,” said Juliet.

“To-morrow?”

“Yes, to-morrow, if that suits you.”

“And if you don’t hate me at the end of a week you’ll come for good.”

Juliet laughed.  “No, I won’t say that.  I’ll leave you a way of escape too.  We will see how it answers.”

Mrs. Fielding held out her hand.  “Good-bye!  Next time you take your tea on the shore, I want to be the guest of honour.”

“You shall be,” said Juliet.

CHAPTER IX

THE INTRUDER

“Everyone to his taste,” remarked Green.  “But I’d rather be anything under the sun than Mrs. Fielding’s paid companion.”  He glanced at Juliet with a smile as he spoke, but there was a certain earnestness in his speech that told her he meant what he said.  He sat with his back to a rock, smoking a cigarette.  His attitude was one of repose, but in the strong light his dark face showed a tenseness that did not wholly agree with it.