Miss Ironsyde was reading and looking forward to her tea when Sabina arrived.  She had heard of the girl through Ernest Churchouse, but she had never met her and did not connect her in any way with Raymond.  Jenny received her and was impressed with her beauty, for Sabina, albeit anxious and nervous, looked handsome after her quick walk.

“I’ve heard of you from your mother and Mr. Churchouse,” said Miss Ironsyde, shaking hands.  “You come from him, I expect.  I hope he is well?  Sit down by the fire.”

Her kindly manner and gentle face set the younger at ease.

“He’s quite well, thank you, miss.  But I’m here for myself, not him.  I’m in a great deal of terrible anxiety, and you’ll excuse me for coming, I do hope, when I explain why I’ve come.  It was understood between me and Mr. Raymond Ironsyde very clearly yesterday that he was going to tell you about it.  He left me yesterday to do so.  But I’ve seen him to-day and I find he never came, so I thought I might venture to come even though it was Sunday.”

“The better the day, the better the deed.  Something is troubling you.  Why did not my nephew come, if he started to come?”

“I don’t know.  Indeed, he should have come.”

“I’m afraid he starts to do a great many things he doesn’t carry through,” said Jenny, and the words, lightly spoken, fell sinister on Sabina’s ear.

“There are some things a man must carry through if he starts to do them,” she said quietly, and her tone threw light for Raymond’s aunt.  She grew serious.

“Tell me,” she said.  “I know my nephew very well and have his interests greatly at heart.  He is somewhat undisciplined still and has had to face certain difficulties and problems, not much in themselves, but much to one with his temperament.”

Then Sabina, who felt that she might be fighting for her life, set out to tell her story.  She proved at her best and spoke well.  She kept her temper and chose her words.  The things that she had thought to speak, indeed, escaped her, but her artless and direct narrative did not fail to convince the listener.

“You’re more to him than anybody in the world, but me,” she said; “but I’m first, Miss Ironsyde.  I must be first now.  Even if to-day he had been different—­but what seemed so near yesterday is far off to-day.  He was harsh to-day.  He terrified me, and I felt you’d think no worse of me than you must, if I ventured to come.  I don’t ask you to believe anything I say until you have seen him; but I’m not going to tell you anything but the sacred truth.  Thanks to Mr. Churchouse I was well educated, and he took kind pains to teach me when I was young and helped me to get fond of books.  So when Mr. Raymond came to the Mill, he found I was intelligent and well mannered.  And he fell in love with me and asked me to marry him.  And I loved him very dearly, because I had never seen or known a man with such a beautiful face and mind.  And I promised to