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frantic with anxiety at what he had on the floor of his cabin.
    Mark Bayfield, in jodhpurs and a turtle-necked sweater, came out and asked the men what the trouble was.
    ‘ Some local bloke who can ’ t talk properly, ’ was the laconic answer.
    Clem recognized a doctor when he saw one, and hesitated. Long ago he had been told that an operation would cure his stutter, or at least remove part of the impediment, but he couldn ’ t face it. He couldn ’ t now, he had never been able to face the thought. He backed out of the arena and drove Gwenny away.
    The sight of her slumped on the floor of his van bothered him dreadfully, but he didn ’ t know what to do. He had wild thoughts of taking her to the hospital and dumping her outside, but he was afraid of the porters. When he had deliveries to make at any hospital or doctor ’ s house he usually pretended to have a cold and to have lost his voice. But he had to do something about Gwenny.
    Finally he remembered Mrs. Yeedon, and drove Gwenny back there, but by then she had come to, and was sitting up, looking very ill.
    Mrs. Yeedon scolded Clem shrilly. She, like Gwenny, could understand him when he tried to talk. Clem told her why he had brought Gwenny back, but instead of Mrs. Yeedon thinking it a clever idea, she was furious.
    ‘ You ’ re a nincompoop, Clem, and that ’ s the truth I There was a fine opportunity for you to deliver that poor child into the hands of a real doctor, and what do you do? You bring her back to me, you fathead! Oh, get along with you, do! ’
    ‘ Don ’ t scold him, ’ Gwenny pleaded weakly from Mrs. Yeedon ’ s best couch. ‘ He insisted on driving me right up to the house. If he hadn ’ t, I might still be lying somewhere half-way along a drive that no one ever uses. I might have been there for hours and no one would have known! It ’ s me you ought to scold, for going there in the first place. ’
    Clem flashed her a brilliant smile of gratitude, but Mrs. Yeedon chased him back to his van before coming back to ask Gwenny to tell her all that again.
    Gwenny did, and at last, having finished, she lay looking at Mrs. Yeedon with eyes so large and dark-ringed that the old woman was almost brought to the point of walking down to the main road and the callbox, and ringing up Gwenny ’ s own father to come and collect her.
    Only the thought of what Gwenny herself would have to say to such a course stopped her.
    ‘ What beats me ,’ she said at last, in extreme exasperation, ‘ was why you wanted to go over there at all. A sensible girl like you should know that the young gentleman wouldn ’ t want callers before he ’ d even moved in. ’
    ‘ I wanted to ask him something, that ’ s all, ’ Gwenny said faintly.
    ‘ Dear life, what would you have the nerve to ask the man, bless us, in the middle of having his home shifted into a strange place ?’
    ‘ It was important to know, if it was true .’
    ‘ I may be an old woman, but I ’ m not all that stupid, though folks might think so, for I ’ m sure I can ’ t see, even if I had fifty pairs of eyes, what it is you want the truth of, miss. ’
    ‘ Darling, darling Mrs. Yeedon, my family—all of them — are saying he ’ s done things to them. Awful things ! I just can ’ t, I won ’ t believe it !’
    Mrs. Yeedon sat down. ‘ Lovey, you ’ re not well. Why should you think your family believe bad things of a man they don ’ t even know yet? He ’ s a stranger to the district. ’
    ‘ I know. That ’ s what ’ s so awful about it, ’ Gwenny muttered, turning her head from side to side.
    Mrs. Yeedon felt her head and her face. Both were very hot and her face decidedly damp. ‘ I must get us a cold compress, ’ she muttered to herself, and got some ice-cold water from the well to wring out a towel in.
    When Dr. Bayfield arrived, he saw Gwenny lying on the couch with a towel twisted round her head, and her eyes shut in her dead-white face. The old woman was crouching