They had led the neighbourhood to call on the discarded Countess of Fleetwood.

A warm strain of arms about her neck was Carinthia’s welcome from Mrs. Wythan lying along the couch in her boudoir; an established invalid, who yearned sanely to life, and caught a spark of it from the guest eyed tenderly by her as they conversed.

’Our boy?—­our Chillon Kirby till he has his baptism names; he is well?  I am to see him?’

‘He follows me.  He sleeps almost through the night now.’

‘Ah, my dear,’ Mrs. Wythan sighed, imagining:  ’It would disappoint me if he did not wake me.’

‘I wake at his old time and watch him.’

Carinthia put on the baby’s face in the soft mould of slumber.

‘I see him!’ Mrs. Wythan cried.  ’He is part mine.  He has taught Owain to love babies.’

A tray of breakfast was placed before the countess.  ’Mr. Wythan is down among his men?’ she said.

’Every morning, as long as this agitation lasts.  I need not say good appetite to you after your walk.  You have no fear of the men, I know.  Owain’s men are undisturbed; he has them in hand.  Absentee masters can’t expect continued harmony.  Dear, he tells me Mr. Edwards awaits the earl.’

Drinking her tea, Carinthia’s eyelids shut; she set down her cup, ’If he must come,’ she said.  ’He wishes me to leave.  I am to go again where I have no friends, and no language to learn, and can be of no use.  It is not for me that I dread his coming.  He speaks to command.  The men ask to be heard.  He will have submission first.  They do not trust him.  His coming is a danger.  For me, I should wish him to come.  May I say . . . ?’

‘Your Rebecca bids you say, my darling.’

’It is, I am with the men because I am so like them.  I beg to be heard.  He commands obedience.  He is a great nobleman, but I am the daughter of a greater man, and I have to say, that if those poor miners do harm, I will not stand by and see an anger against injustice punished.  I wish his coming, for him to agree upon the Christian names of the boy.  I feel his coming will do me, injury in making me offend him worse.  I would avoid that.  Oh, dear soul!  I may say it to you:—­he cannot hurt me any more.  I am spared loving him when I forgive him; and I do.  The loving is the pain.  That is gone by.’

Mrs. Wythan fondled and kissed Carinthia’s hand.

’Let me say in my turn; I may help you, dear.  You know I have my husband’s love, as he mine.  Am I, have I ever been a wife to him?  Here I lie, a dead weight, to be carried up and down, all of a wife that Owain has had for years.  I lie and pray to be taken, that my good man, my proved good man, may be free to choose a healthy young woman and be rewarded before his end by learning what a true marriage is.  The big simpleton will otherwise be going to his grave, thinking he was married!  I see him stepping about softly in my room, so contented