Several days went by; still no one accused him; he was still suffered to remain.  Why?  He could not understand.  At the end of a long—­seemingly interminable week—­he put himself deliberately in the way of finding out.  Coming to, or going from the house, he lingered around the area entrance, purposely to encounter her whom he had heretofore, above all others, wished to avoid.  A feverish desire possessed him to meet the worst, and then go about his way, no matter where it might lead him.  He was past solicitude in that regard.  He did at length manage to meet her—­not as before in the full daylight but toward dusk, as she returned, this time on foot, to the house.

“Miss Dalrymple, may I speak to you?” he said to the indistinctly seen, slender figure that started lightly up the front steps.

She did not even stop, although she must have heard him; a moment he saw her like a shadow; then the front door opened.  He heard a crisp metallic click; the door closed.  Slowly with head a little downbent he walked out, up the way she had come; then around the corner a short distance to the stables over which he had his room.

It was a nice room, he had at first thought, probably because he liked horses.  They—­four or five thoroughbreds—­whinnied as he opened the door.  He had started up the dark narrow stairs to his chamber, but stopped at that sound and groped about from stall to stall passing around the expected lumps of sugar.  After which all seemed well as far as he and they were concerned.

Only that other problem!—­he could not shake it from him.  To resign now?—­under fire?  How he wished he might!  But to remain?—­his situation was intolerable.  He went up to his room feeling like a ghost; his mind was full of dark presences, as if he had lived a thousand times before and had been surrounded only by hostile influences that now came back in the still watches of the night to haunt him.

He dreaded going to the house the next day, but he went.  Perhaps, he reflected, she was only allowing him to retain his present position under a kind of espionage; to trap him and put him beyond the pale of respectable society.  He remembered the cruel lips, the passionate dislike—­contempt—­even hatred—­in her eyes.  Yes; that might be it—­the reason for her temporary silence; the house was full of valuable things; sooner or later—­

“Are you quite satisfied, Madam, with my services?” said Mr. Heatherbloom that afternoon to Miss Van Rolsen.

“You seem to do well enough,” she answered shortly.

He brightened.  “Perhaps some one else would do better.”

“Perhaps,” she returned dryly.  “But I’m not going to try.”

“But,” he said desperately, “I—­I don’t think they—­the dogs, like me quite so much as they did.  Naughty, in particular,” he added quickly.  “I—­I thought yesterday he would have liked to—­growl and nip at me.”

“Did he,” she asked, studying him with disconcerting keenness, “actually do that?”