Joan was about to offer comment, but was struck dumb with astonishment on hearing McKean’s voice:  it seemed he could talk.  He was telling of an old Scotch peasant farmer.  A mean, cantankerous old cuss whose curious pride it was that he had never given anything away.  Not a crust, nor a sixpence, nor a rag; and never would.  Many had been the attempts to make him break his boast:  some for the joke of the thing and some for the need; but none had ever succeeded.  It was his one claim to distinction and he guarded it.

One evening it struck him that the milk-pail, standing just inside the window, had been tampered with.  Next day he marked with a scratch the inside of the pan and, returning later, found the level of the milk had sunk half an inch.  So he hid himself and waited; and at twilight the next day the window was stealthily pushed open, and two small, terror-haunted eyes peered round the room.  They satisfied themselves that no one was about and a tiny hand clutching a cracked jug was thrust swiftly in and dipped into the pan; and the window softly closed.

He knew the thief, the grandchild of an old bedridden dame who lived some miles away on the edge of the moor.  The old man stood long, watching the small cloaked figure till it was lost in the darkness.  It was not till he lay upon his dying bed that he confessed it.  But each evening, from that day, he would steal into the room and see to it himself that the window was left ajar.

After the coffee, Mrs. Phillips proposed their adjourning to the “drawing-room” the other side of the folding doors, which had been left open.  Phillips asked her to leave Joan and himself where they were.  He wanted to talk to her.  He promised not to bore her for more than ten minutes.

The others rose and moved away.  Hilda came and stood before Joan with her hands behind her.

“I am going to bed now,” she said.  “I wanted to see you from what Papa told me.  May I kiss you?”

It was spoken so gravely that Joan did not ask her, as in lighter mood she might have done, what it was that Phillips had said.  She raised her face quietly, and the child bent forward and kissed her, and went out without looking back at either of them, leaving Joan more serious than there seemed any reason for.  Phillips filled his pipe and lighted it.

“I wish I had your pen,” he said, suddenly breaking the silence.  “I’m all right at talking; but I want to get at the others:  the men and women who never come, thinking it has nothing to do with them.  I’m shy and awkward when I try to write.  There seems a barrier in front of me.  You break through it.  One hears your voice.  Tell me,” he said, “are you getting your way?  Do they answer you?”

“Yes,” said Joan.  “Not any great number of them, not yet.  But enough to show that I really am interesting them.  It grows every week.”

“Tell them that,” he said.  “Let them hear each other.  It’s the same at a meeting.  You wait ten minutes sometimes before one man will summon up courage to put a question; but once one or two have ventured they spring up all round you.  I was wondering,” he added, “if you would help me; let me use you, now and again.”