“Let her stay where she is,” said Victoria, putting her arm around the child.  “The dress washes, and it’s so nice outside.”

“You rich folks certainly do have strange notions,” declared Mrs. Fitch, fingering the flounce on Victoria’s skirt, which formed the subject of conversation for the next few minutes.

“How are you getting on?” Victoria asked at length.

A look of pain came into the woman’s eyes.

“You’ve be’n so good to us, and done so much gettin’ Eben a job on your father’s place, that I don’t feel as if I ought to lie to you.  He done it again—­on Saturday night.  First time in three months.  The manager up at Fairview don’t know it.  Eben was all right Monday.”

“I’m sorry,” said Victoria, simply.  “Was it bad?”

“It might have be’n.  Young Mr. Vane is stayin’ up at Jabe Jenney’s—­you know, the first house as you turn off the hill road.  Mr. Vane heard some way what you’d done for us, and he saw Eben in Ripton Saturday night, and made him get into his buggy and come home.  I guess he had a time with Eben.  Mr. Vane, he came around here on Sunday, and gave him as stiff a talkin’ to as he ever got, I guess.  He told Eben he’d ought to be ashamed of himself goin’ back on folks who was tryin’ to help him pay his mortgage.  And I’ll say this for Eben, he was downright ashamed.  He told Mr. Vane he could lick him if he caught him drunk again, and Mr. Vane said he would.  My, what a pretty colour you’ve got to-day.”

Victoria rose.  “I’m going to send you down some washing,” she said.

Mrs. Fitch insisted upon untying the horse, while Victoria renewed her promises to the children.

There were two ways of going back to Fairview,—­a long and a short way, —­and the long way led by Jabe Jenney’s farm.  Victoria came to the fork in the road, paused,—­and took the long way.  Several times after this, she pulled her horse down to a walk, and was apparently on the point of turning around again:  a disinterested observer in a farm wagon, whom she passed, thought that she had missed her road.  “The first house after you turn off the hill road,” Mrs. Fitch had said.  She could still, of course, keep on the hill road, but that would take her to Weymouth, and she would never get home.

It is useless to go into the reasons for this act of Victoria’s.  She did not know them herself.  The nearer Victoria got to Mr. Jenney’s, the more she wished herself back at the forks.  Suppose Mrs. Fitch told him of her visit!  Perhaps she could pass the Jenneys’ unnoticed.  The chances of this, indeed, seemed highly favourable, and it was characteristic of her sex that she began to pray fervently to this end.  Then she turned off the hill road, feeling as though she had but to look back to see the smoke of the burning bridges.