“Gone, sir! packed off!—­Can’t have her here now.”  The farmer thrummed a step brisker, and eyed the young man’s wild face resolutely.

“Mr. Blaize,” Richard leaned forward to get closer to him.  He was stunned, and hardly aware of what he was saying or doing:  “Where has she gone?  Why did she leave?”

“You needn’t to ask, sir—­ye know,” said the farmer, with a side shot of his head.

“But she did not—­it was not her wish to go?”

“No!  I think she likes the place.  Mayhap she likes’t too well!”

“Why did you send her away to make her unhappy, Mr. Blaize?”

The farmer bluntly denied it was he was the party who made her unhappy.  “Nobody can’t accuse me.  Tell ye what, sir.  I wunt have the busybodies set to work about her, and there’s all the matter.  So let you and I come to an understandin’.”

A blind inclination to take offence made Richard sit upright.  He forgot it the next minute, and said humbly:  “Am I the cause of her going?”

“Well!” returned the farmer, “to speak straight—­ye be!”

“What can I do, Mr. Blaize, that she may come back again” the young hypocrite asked.

“Now,” said the farmer, “you’re coming to business.  Glad to hear ye talk in that sensible way, Mr. Feverel.  You may guess I wants her bad enough.  The house ain’t itself now she’s away, and I ain’t myself.  Well, sir!  This ye can do.  If you gives me your promise not to meddle with her at all—­I can’t mak’ out how you come to be acquainted; not to try to get her to be meetin’ you—­and if you’d ’a seen her when she left, you would—­when did ye meet?—­last grass, wasn’t it?—­your word as a gentleman not to be writing letters, and spyin’ after her—­I’ll have her back at once.  Back she shall come!”

“Give her up!” cried Richard.

“Ay, that’s it!” said the farmer.  “Give her up.”

The young man checked the annihilation of time that was on his mouth.

“You sent her away to protect her from me, then?” he said savagely.

“That’s not quite it, but that’ll do,” rejoined the farmer.

“Do you think I shall harm her, sir?”

“People seem to think she’ll harm you, young gentleman,” the farmer said with some irony.

“Harm me—­she?  What people?”

“People pretty intimate with you, sir.”

“What people?  Who spoke of us?” Richard began to scent a plot, and would not be balked.

“Well, sir, look here,” said the farmer.  “It ain’t no secret, and if it be, I don’t see why I’m to keep it.  It appears your education’s peculiar!” The farmer drawled out the word as if he were describing the figure of a snake.  “You ain’t to be as other young gentlemen.  All the better!  You’re a fine bold young gentleman, and your father’s a right to be proud of ye.  Well, sir—­I’m sure I thank him for’t he comes to hear of you and Luce, and of course he don’t want nothin’ o’ that—­more do I. I meets him there!