’How is the invalid, Gladys?  I take it for granted you have been to see him.’

‘Yes, sir, Miss Gwynne sent me with some jelly.  He is better, I hope?’

‘And are you going home now?’

‘Yes, sir.’

’Stay one moment; will you give the poor man this half-crown when you see him again?’

Gladys approached, and took the half-crown, but with it there was half-a-sovereign.

‘The rest is for yourself, to do what you like with,’ added the colonel, in a low voice.

‘Thank you, sir, but I never take money,’ said Gladys, leaving the gold in his hand, ‘I do not need it.’

‘Give it to the poor, then,’ said the colonel, letting it drop, and looking annoyed.

’Certainly, sir, if you wish it; I will tell Miss Gwynne, and she will know to whom to give it.’

‘By no means—­I mean it for you.’

‘Sir, you will excuse me, I would rather not,’ said Gladys, curtseying again, and hastening on.

Colonel Vaughan called to a boy who was near, and told him to pick up the money and give it to him.

‘How often does that young lady come here?’ he asked.

‘Almost every day, sir,’ was the reply.

‘At what time?’

‘In the afternoon, sir, from three to five, or thereabouts.’

‘Goes back in time to help Miss Gwynne dress for dinner,’ thought the colonel; ‘what a lovely face it is!  And what grace of movement.’

He watched Gladys cross the farm-yard, and disappear in the plantations, through which there was a private path to the house.

Mr Gwynne and he passed her again as they rode on, and she curtseyed once more, Mr Gwynne nodding to her kindly as she looked at him.

‘Who is that girl, Mr Gwynne?’

’Oh! my daughter’s maid, I believe.  A very pretty, modest young woman, and all that sort of thing.  Freda is very fond of her.’

They struck into another path, and Colonel Vaughan saw no more of Gladys that day, though he peeped into various stray corners of the house in the hope of doing so.  Moreover, he found Freda captious and cross, and particularly annoyed at his and her father’s visit to Pentre.  He punished her by playing chess with her father nearly all the evening, and leaving her to a variety of reflections that were anything but satisfactory to her.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE TEMPTER.

’I particularly wish you to go, Gladys, and there will be plenty of time.  He was worse when I saw him yesterday, and I promised to send you to-day to read to him, and take him some wine.  I shall not want you till five, and my dress is quite ready.  They dine at half-past six, and the evening party are invited for nine, I believe.’

This was said by Miss Gwynne to Gladys, at about half-past two o’clock, on the day of Miss Nugent’s festivities.

‘Very well, ma’am,’ said Gladys, ’I will make as much haste as possible.’