She said not a word in answer.  Her hand slid passively from his hold,—­and she never looked up.  He hesitated for a moment—­then walked towards the door.

“You’ll have all the day to yourself with Robin,” he added, glancing back at her—­“There’ll be no spies about the place, and no one listening, as there was last night!”

She sprang up from her chair, moved at last by an impulse of indignation.

“Who was it?” she asked—­“I said nothing wrong—­and I do not care!—­but who was it?”

A curious strained look came into old Hugo’s eyes as he answered—­

“Ned Landon.”

She looked amazed,—­then scared.

“Ned Landon?”

“Ay!  Ned Landon.  He hasn’t the sweetest of tempers and he isn’t always sober.  He’s a bit in the way sometimes,—­ay, ay!—­a bit in the way!  But he’s a good farm hand for all that,—­and his word stands for something!  I’d rather he hadn’t heard you and Robin talking last night—­but what’s done is done, and it’s a mischief easy mended—­”

“Why, what mischief can there be?” the girl demanded, her colour coming and going quickly—­“And why should he have listened?  It’s a mean trick to spy upon others!”

He smiled indulgently.

“Of course it’s a mean trick, child!—­but there’s a good many men —­and women too—­who are just made up of mean tricks and nothing more.  They spend their lives in spying upon their neighbours and interfering in everybody’s business.  You’d soon find that out, my girl, if you lived in the big world that lies outside Briar Farm!  Ay!—­and that reminds me—­” Here he came from the door back into the room again, and going to a quaint old upright oaken press that stood in one corner, he unlocked it and took out a roll of bank-notes.  These he counted carefully over to himself, and folding them up put them away in his breast pocket.  “Now I’m ready!” he said—­“Ready for all I’ve got to do!  Good-bye, my wilding!” He approached her, and lifting her small face between his hands, kissed it tenderly.  “Bless thee!  No child of my own could be dearer than thou art!  All I want now is to leave thee in safe and gentle keeping when I die.  Think of this and be good to Robin!”

She trembled under his caress, and her heart was full of speechless sorrow.  She longed to yield to his wishes,—­she knew that if she did so she would give him happiness and greater resignation to the death which confronted him; and she also knew that if she could make up her mind to marry Robin Clifford she would have the best and the tenderest of husbands.  And Briar Farm,—­the beloved old home—­would be hers!—­her very own!  Her children would inherit it and play about the fair and fruitful fields as she had done—­they, too, could be taught to love the memory of the old knight, the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin—­ah!—­but surely it was the spirit of the Sieur Amadis himself that held her back and prevented her from doing his name and memory grievous wrong!  She was not of his blood or race—­she was nameless and illegitimate,—­no good could come of her engrafting herself like a weed upon a branch of the old noble stock—­the farm would cease to prosper.