“What kind of things?”

“I won’t tell you.”

“Tell me one.”

“Well, then, ‘Beloved.’”

“Word We have no Concern with,” murmured Tommy.  He was shocked, but still curious.  “Does she say ‘Beloved’ to you?” he inquired.

“No, she says it to him.”

“Him!  Wha is he?” Tommy thought he was at the beginning of a discovery, but she answered, uncomfortably,

“I don’t know.”

“But you’ve seen him?”

“No, he—­he is not there.”

“Not there!  How can she speak to him if he’s no there?”

“She thinks he is there.  He—­he comes on a horse.”

“What is the horse like?”

“There is no horse.”

“But you said—­”

“She just thinks there is a horse.  She hears it.”

“Do you ever hear it?”

“No.”

The girl was looking imploringly into Tommy’s face as if begging it to say that these things need not terrify her, but what he wanted was information.

“What does the Painted Lady do,” he asked, “when she thinks she hears the horse?”

“She blows kisses, and then—­then she goes to the Den.”

“What to do?”

“She walks up and down the Den, talking to the man.”

“And him no there?” cried Tommy, scared.

“No, there is no one there.”

“And syne what do you do?”

“I won’t tell you.”

Tommy reflected, and then he said, “She’s daft.”

“She is not always daft,” cried Grizel.  “There are whole weeks when she is just sweet.”

“Then what do you make of her being so queer in the Den?”

“I am not sure, but I think—­I think there was once a place like the Den at her own home in England, where she used to meet the man long ago, and sometimes she forgets that it is not long ago now.”

“I wonder wha the man was?”

“I think he was my father.”

“I thought you didna ken what a father was?”

“I know now.  I think my father was a Scotsman.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I heard a Thrums woman say it would account for my being called Grizel, and I think we came to Scotland to look for him, but it is so long, long ago.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know.  We have lived here four years, but we were looking for him before that.  It was not in this part of Scotland we looked for him.  We gave up looking for him before we came here.”

“What made the Painted Lady take a house here, then?”

“I think it was because the Den is so like the place she used to meet him in long ago.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does the Painted Lady no tell you about yoursel’?”

“No, she is angry if I ask.”

“Her name is Mary, I’ve heard?”

“Mary Gray is her name, but—­but I don’t think it is her real name.”

“How, does she no use her real name?”