The lamp-light, playing on the broad chimney-piece with its brass candlesticks and china ornaments, reached for a yard or so up the wall, and then was cut off by the shadow of the reflectors.  But in that illuminated space, fronting the children, stood out a panel of plaster, moulded in high relief, overlaid with a wash of drab-coloured paint.  The moulding was of a coat-of-arms—­a shield surrounded by a foliated pattern, and crossed with the same four diamond device as was tattooed on Miles Arthur’s shoulder—­this with two antlered stags, collared, with hanging chains for supporters; above it a cap of maintenance and a stag’s head coupe for crest; and beneath a scroll bearing some words which Tilda could not decipher.  She glanced at Chrissy, alert at once and on the defensive.  She had recognised the four diamonds, but all the rest was a mere mystery to her.

“He’s got just that mark on his shoulder,” said Chrissy, meeting her gaze and nodding towards the shield.

“Has he?” said Tilda disingenuously.

But she was jealous already, and by habit distrustful of her sex.

“Didn’t you know?  I noticed it, just now, when he was stripped.  And I thought for a moment . . . you two coming and asking for Sir Miles. . . .  But I’m always supposing some secret or other.  Mother says it comes of muzzing my head with books, and then putting two and two together and making ’em five. . . .  It’s fanciful, of course”—­here Chrissy sighed—­“things don’t happen like that in real life. . . .  But there’s always been stories about Sir Miles; and when I saw the mark—­it is queer, now—­”

But Tilda kept a steady face, her eyes fixed on the escutcheon.

“What does it mean?” she asked.  “I don’t know about these things.”

“Why it’s Sir Miles’s coat-of-arms; of the Chandons, that is.  Inistow Farm used to belong to them—­belonged to them for hundreds of years, right down to the time Miss Sally bought it.  Father farmed it under them for thirty years before that, and his father, and his grandfather, and his great-greats—­back ever so long.  He was terribly put out when it changed hands; but now he says ‘Thank the Lord’ when he talks of it.”

“Changed hands?” Tilda found herself echoing.

“Yes.  Inistow has belonged to Miss Sally these five years now.  I thought maybe you’d be knowing all about her and Sir Miles—­coming like this and inquiring for them.  She’s a good one, is Miss Sally; but when a woman sees a man poor—­well, of course, that’s her revenge.”

“Is—­is Sir Miles poor?”