“Keep close to me, please,” he said briefly, nor did he volunteer any further remark until they had accomplished the journey to the house, and were standing together in the old-fashioned hall which evidently served him as a living room.

Here Trent relieved her of the coat, and while she stood warming her feet at the huge log-fire, blazing half-way up the chimney, he rang for his servant and issued orders for tea to be brought, as composedly as though visitors of the feminine persuasion were a matter of everyday occurrence.

Sara, catching a glimpse of Judson’s almost petrified face of astonishment as he retreated to carry out his master’s instructions, and with a vivid recollection of her last encounter with him, almost laughed out loud.

“Please sit down,” said Trent.  “And”—­with a glance towards her feet—­“you had better take off those wet shoes.”

There was something in his curt manner of giving orders—­rather as though he were a drill-sergeant, Sara reflected—­that aroused her to opposition.  She held out her feet towards the blaze of the fire.

“No, thank you,” she replied airily.  “They’ll dry like this.”

As she spoke, she glanced up and encountered a sudden flash in his eyes like the keen flicker of a sword-blade.  Without vouchsafing any answer, he knelt down beside her and began to unlace her shoes, finally drawing them off and laying them sole upwards, in front of the fire to dry.  Then he passed his hand lightly over her stockinged feet.

“Wringing wet!” he remarked curtly.  “Those silk absurdities must come off as well.”

Sara sprang up.

“No!” she said firmly.  “They shall not!”

He looked at her, again with that glint of mocking amusement with which he had first greeted her presence in his summer-house.

“You’d rather have a bad cold?” he suggested.

“Ever so much rather!” retorted Sara hardily.

He gave a short laugh, almost as though he could not help himself, and, with a shrug of his shoulders, turned and marched out of the room.

Left alone, Sara glanced about her in some surprise at the evidences of a cultivated taste and love of beauty which the room supplied.  It was not quite the sort of abode she would have associated with the grim, misanthropic type of man she judged her host to be.

The old-fashioned note, struck by the huge oaken beams supporting the ceiling and by the open hearth, had been retained throughout, and every detail—­the blue willow-pattern china on the old oak dresser, the dimly lustrous pewter perched upon the chimney-piece, the silver candle-sconces thrusting out curved, gleaming arms from the paneled walls—­was exquisite of its kind.  It reminded her of the old hall at Barrow, where she and Patrick had been wont to sit and yarn together on winter evenings.

The place had a well-tended air, too, and Sara, who waged daily war against the slovenly shabbiness prevalent at Sunnyside, was all at once sensible of how desperately she had missed the quiet perfection of the service at Barrow.  The nostalgia for her old home—­the unquenchable, homesick longing for the place that has held one’s happiness—­rushed over her in a overwhelming flood.