The refinement of the girl’s voice became more and more apparent to Catherine.  There was a thrill and a quality in it which both repelled and fascinated.  This queer waif and stray, this vagabond of the woodside, was at least as fearless as herself.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, in a less imperious tone than she had hitherto used.

“I could explain what I mean, but I won’t.  I have too kind a heart to crush you.  I could crush you.  I could take that dainty white hand of yours, and feel it tremble in mine—­and if you knew all that I could say you wouldn’t leave me out here in the avenue, but you’d take me in, and give me the best to eat, and the softest bed to lie upon.  Don’t you think it’s very kind of me when I could use such power over you that I don’t use it?  Don’t you think it’s noble of me?  Oh, you are a dainty girl, and a proud, but I could bring you and yours to the very dust.”

“You must be mad,” said Catherine.  “Absolutely mad.  How can you possibly expect me to listen to this wild nonsense?  You had better go away now.  I’ll walk with you as far as the gate, and then I’ll wake up Tester to lock it after you.  You needn’t suppose that I’m afraid.”

“Don’t taunt me,” said the girl.  “If you do I’ll use my power.  Oh, I am hungry, and thirsty, and footsore.  Why shouldn’t I go into that house and sleep there, and eat there, and be rested?”

Her words were defiant, but just at the last they wavered, and Catherine saw by the moonlight that her face grew ghastly under its grimness, and she saw the slender young figure sway as if it would fall.

“You are hungry?” said Catherine, all her feelings merged in sudden pity.  “Even though you have no right to be here, you sha’n’t go hungry away.  Sit down.  Rest against that tree, and I will fetch you something.”

She ran into the house, returning presently with a jug of milk, and some thick bread and butter.

“Eat that,” she said, “and drink this milk, then you will be better.  I slipped a cup into my pocket.  It is not broken.  I will pour you out a cup of milk.”

The girl seized the bread and butter, and began devouring it.  She was so famished that she almost tore it as she ate.  Catherine, who had quite forgotten her dignified role in compassion for the first real hunger she had ever witnessed, knelt on the grass by her side, and once, twice, thrice, filled the cup full of milk, and held it to her lips.

“Now you are better,” she said, when the meal had come to an end.

“Yes, thank you, Miss Bertram, much better.  The horrible sinking is gone, and the ground doesn’t seem to reel away when I look at it.  Thank you, Miss Catherine Bertram, I shall do nicely now.  I do not at all mind sleeping here on the cool grass till the morning.”

“But you are not to stay.  Why are you obstinate when I am good to you?  And why do you call me Miss Catherine Bertram?  How can you possibly know my name?”