At last she nodded, and rang a bell. The girl who had admitted him at the front door came in, and Mrs. Vaisey spoke to her in a voice almost too low to be heard by Sidney. “Is Gareth dressed yet? . . . He’s had something to eat already? I see. . . . Will you just step in then and tell him I’ll be up directly with this young man.”

“You won’t have something to drink while we’re waiting?” she inquired of Sidney. He shook his head.

Sidney somehow had the feeling that they were in a train station, waiting for someone to arrive. But he knew in fact she was stalling for time.

“Life is very hard, Mr. De Lakes . . . But I don’t need to tell you.” This was her only indication that she had recognized and thought over thoroughly that he had been “in trouble,” the phrase people in this village use to cover prison, and being pregnant without a husband.

“I would like more than anything in the world to take the position,” he said in a loud voice.

She looked up as surprised as if he had spoken in Greek.

“I was quite prepared to take you before you got here,” she replied. “Dr. Ulric has never recommended anyone before.”

Just then the young girl appeared again and nodded to her employer. Mrs. Vaisey rose, and asked him to allow her to go on ahead.

He had not been quite prepared for so long a flight of stairs. And whereas she did not appear to notice them, he had to pause occasionally. “I suffer from a stitch in the side when climbing or walking fast,” he explained his pokiness.

“Perhaps Dr. Ulric should see you about it,” she commented when she saw the stairs had winded him. “He was no help of course with Gareth, but then the specialists weren’t either.”

“Mr. De Lakes, I must ask one thing of you . . .” She turned back to face him. “Please don’t let him see any extreme emotion on your face . . . If you could sort of look poker-­faced even . . . It’s hard for him to see outsiders. . . . So we’ll go very quietly now and look in on him, for I want you to be his . . .” (he felt, as she stumbled for the word, she had been about to say keeper) “companion. I do want you for the post, sir, and I hope you realize this.”

She knocked on the door then, and cried out in a voice which had almost a note of awe in it, “It’s Mother, Gareth . . . May we come in . . . I’m with the young man who has come to see you. . . .”

Sidney felt a thrill of terror too now, a remembrance of the emotion he had used to feel when Vance visited him in prison.