“Oh, how the wind has made my cheeks burn,” she cried, pressing her palms against them.  “You know how one pines for woods and pastures at this time of year!” she continued.  “A kind of nostalgia!  Directly after breakfast I sent Miller for a motor-car from the garage in the next street, and I went to Crowborough.”

“Alone?” asked Mark.

“Didn’t you see I was alone?  That was the idea, you know.  I hadn’t been inside the dear old house since father and I left it four years ago.  There was a board up.  It was to be let again, so I rang the bell and went all over it—­round the garden, then to the churchyard.  I suppose you scarcely remember my mother, Mark?”

“Very indistinctly,” he answered, seeing that she was in a somewhat emotional mood.

But, to tell the truth, he was inclined to distrust appearances.  During his previous visit to Golfney Place, she had betrayed a certain amount of feeling, with the deliberate object, he felt convinced, of awakening his sympathy.  On that occasion Bridget had told him about her pecuniary difficulties, in order to induce him to anticipate Colonel Faversham.  At present he was wondering whether or not she had a similar end in view.

“My mother,” she said, drawing nearer, “was the best and sweetest woman in the world.  You are a clever man.  Tell me how she came to have such a daughter.”

Surely the late Mrs. Rosser could scarcely have had a more seductive child!  At the moment, she stood almost touching Mark, her chin raised, gazing up into his eyes.  The sunlight fell upon her hair, and he wished he could refrain from noticing her dimple.

“What is the matter with her?” he asked.

“Don’t pretend you are so dense,” said Bridget, resting a hand on his shoulder.  “I gave myself away the last time you were here, and of course that’s the reason you have never been near me since!”

She was almost resting against him, either carried away by her emotion or deliberately trying to lead him on.  Mark felt very little doubt as to her purpose; he was convinced that she was bringing all her batteries to bear upon him, and it is a painful task to chronicle a good man’s fall!

On the deplorable impulse of the moment, he put an arm around Bridget and kissed her lips.  Then two alarming things happened.  As the door opened and Miller announced “Miss Faversham,” Mark saw from the shocked, indignant expression on Bridget’s face, that on the present occasion, at least, he had misinterpreted her intention.

There seemed to be something ironic in the circumstances.  Never had Mark felt more enthusiastic in his devotion to Carrissima than he had done when he entered Number 5, Golfney Place, this afternoon.  Hitherto when Bridget had in truth been tempting him, he had succeeded in standing firm; but to-day, when she had been making a sincere appeal for his help and sympathy, he had lost his self-control.