When that happened she sprang swiftly from the bed to her own door, and softly opened it.

Two men stood in the hall below.  Slipping out on to the landing, she leaned upon the banisters in the darkness and looked down.  Even as she did so, a voice she knew well came up out of the gloom—­a kindly, well-bred voice that spoke with a slight drawl.

“I shouldn’t be downhearted, Ironside.  Remember, no one is cornered so long as he can turn round and go back.  It’s the only thing to do when you know you’ve taken a wrong turning.”

Doris caught her breath.  Her fingers gripped the black oak rail.  She listened in rigid expectancy for Jeff’s answer.  But no answer came.

In a moment Hugh’s voice came again, still calm and friendly.  “I’m going away directly.  The Squire has been ordered to the South for the rest of the winter, and I’ve promised to go with him.  I suppose we shall start some time next week.  May I look in and say ’Good-bye’?”

There was a pause.  The girl on the landing above waited tensely for Jeff’s answer.  It came at last slowly, in a tone that was not unfriendly, but which did not sound spontaneous.  “You can do as you like, Chesyl.  I have no objection.”

“All right, then.  Good-bye for the present!  I hope when I do come I shall find that all’s well.  All will be well in the end, eh, Jeff?”

There was a touch of feeling in the question that made Doris aware that the speaker had gripped her husband’s hand.

But again there was a pause before the answer came, heavily, it seemed reluctantly:  “Yes, it’ll be all right for her in the end.  Good-bye!”

The front-door opened; they went out into the porch together.  And Doris slipped back, to her room.

Those last words of her husband’s rang strangely in her heart.  Why had he put it like that?

Her thoughts went to Hugh—­dear and faithful friend who had taken this step on her behalf.  What had passed between him and her husband during that interview in the parlour?  She longed to know.

But whatever it had been, Hugh had emerged victorious.  He had destroyed those foul suspicions of Jeff’s.  He had conquered the man’s enmity, overthrown his passionate jealousy, humbled him into admitting himself to be in the wrong.  Very curiously that silent admission of Jeff’s hurt her pride almost as if it had been made on her behalf.  The thought of Jeff worsted by Hugh Chesyl, however deeply in the wrong he might be, was somehow very hard to bear.  Her heart ached for the man.  She did not want him to be humbled.

When Granny Grimshaw came up with her tea, she was half-dressed.

“I couldn’t sleep any longer,” she said.  “It’s dear of you to take such care of me.  But I’m quite all right.  Dear Granny, forgive me for giving you such a horrible Christmas Day!” She bent suddenly forward and kissed the wrinkled face.

“My dearie!  My dearie!” said Granny Grimshaw.