Stranger in Their Midst

STRANGER IN THEIR MIDST Jean S MacLeod

It was hard on Susan Danely when a stranger came to Coulourdale and took the place her family had held for generations. She and the overbearing Graham Courage could never be friends, she told herself, and she made no secret of her hostility. But as she came to know him better, she found, unwillingly, that her feelings were beginning to change - didn't they say that hatred was akin to love? But was it too late now? Or would she be given a second chance?"

CHAPTER ONE SUSAN DANELY stood on the green spur above the Witches' Cauldron and watched the new owner of Danely's move into the house he had bought along with the mill. She had been born in that house, and her father before her, and his father, three generations of Danelys since old Ephraim Danely had built the mill which had dominated the whole green dale at one time. She looked down at the narrow valley and up to the square, grey bulk of the mill with its stack standing smokeless against the sky. The building was empty, soulless. There had been no work done there for over a year now, yet she, who loved the green dale passionately, saw the advent of a stranger as betrayal. Danelys had worked there for generations, Danelys had owned the mill, and she, a Danely, had come to the realisation of her heritage too late. Her proud head lifted and her grey eyes were defiant as they travelled once more to the tall chimney just visible beyond the trees. In a matter of days smoke would rise from it again. For the first time since her family—all that remained of it—had moved from Fourstones to the bleak, low-built farmhouse on the moors there would be work at the mill. Characteristically, she would not turn away. She stood watching as the heavy furniture vans wound along the drive to Fourstones, resenting the stranger who now owned Danely's with all her will, conscious of envy and a feeling of frustration that rose in her heart like an overpowering tide. She told herself that she would have done all this, and more, for Danely's, if only she had been her father's son and not his daughter. Danely's had gone down because there had been no one to carry on when the father had been taken ill, and they had been forced to sell.

Bitterness tinged her thoughts here, but she forced it back. Selfpity should have no place in her mind. It was crowded out by resentment. A fierce pride in lineage would have kept Danely's and lovely, remote Colourdale free from the stranger, the man whose money had enabled him to buy Danely's from the syndicate that had never worked it for an enormous price. What did any stranger know of the dales? How could he care for their quiet valley, set deeply among its undulating hills, as generations of Danelys had cared, as Ralph would have cared had he lived? Her older brother's death was still fresh and bleak in her mind, as if some injustice had been done. He had died loving the dale, thinking back, no doubt, to the long vacations when he had roamed the hills with a dog at his heels and a gun under his arm. Yes, it would have been different if Ralph had lived. She knew the dale towns and loved them, too, visualising them before their grey houses had been hedged in by mill and factory, seeing the undulations of the open moor in their steep streets and hoping, fervently that her native Colourdale would never suffer a similar fate. True, there was little that was beautiful about the two grey mills themselves, but they stood in a green paradise where the winds still blew free, and sheep browsed on the hills above them. It was sometimes difficult to believe that the white, winding road breasting the rise above her reached into the heart of a great city like Leeds in a matter of miles, or that Rochdale's smoky chimneys were just concealed by the high shoulder of Colour Pike across the valley floor. As if to accentuate the fact, a car came rushing up the road behind her, purring up the incline to the Hog's Back and driving the silence away from the hills and some of the defiance out of her

eyes. She watched it breast the rise and draw to a halt as the driver sat to admire the unexpected view. The dog by her side stirred, bounding forward in noisy protest at such an intrusion, and she called after him in vain. 'Taffy! Taff—come back, you ill-mannered dog!' A man got out of the car, standing with his hand on the door. He was tall and lean and angular, with frank blue eyes set in a thin, tanned face and not a suspicion of unwanted flesh anywhere, a man who would have looked more at ease on horseback than driving a high-powered car, with a suggestion of latent strength about him that was obvious at a glance. He looked frankly amused as the belligerent little corgi challenged him. Susan jumped down from her vantage-point to call the dog off, but Taffy had spied a black muzzle and two cocked ears in the back of the strange car and was barking his defiance with all his might. He took no notice of Susan, his wiry hair bristling along his back and his sturdy little legs planted firmly across the interloper's path.' 'I'm sorry,' Susan apologised, 'but he thinks the moor is his own especial province, particularly this part of it now that we've come to live here! He doesn't take kindly to a strange dog.' 'His courage has to be commended,' the man said, glancing whimsically at the big bull mastiff in the back of his car. 'He's a Welsh corgi, isn't he? They're plucky little fellows, I'm told, but I think I'd better keep Bill in the car. Neither of them would give an inch, I guess!'

Susan glanced at the growling occupant of the back seat and smiled, thinking that the mastiff was just the kind of dog such a man would own, big and strong and reliable, with an even temper, until fully aroused. 'I don't think Taffy would back out once he'd flung down the gauntlet!' she laughed. 'He'd rather die than confess defeat.' He moved towards the ledge where she had been standing when he had driven up and, almost automatically, she followed him, trying to recognise the slight inflection in his voice which could scarcely be called an accent. She attempted to place him as he stood looking out across the dale, taking little notice of Taffy's continuing disapproval. Soldier? Sailor? The upright bearing might certainly have suggested the former, but a certain far-seeing look in the blue eyes which ranged across the hills could have come from long usage at sea. His glance was quick and keen, marking each detail of what he saw. 'This is Colourdale?' he asked. 'Yes.' Susan stood beside him, her eyes fixed on the familiar outline of the distant Pike with the white clouds sailing over it and the sheep grazing quietly on its lower slopes. 'Have you been here before?' 'No, but I've heard a lot about it.' His eyes rested on the winding river far beneath them, picking out the water mill and the stone bridge and the old drove road up to the pass. 'Colourdale is good grazing land, I believe. Are there only the two mills?' 'Yes.' For some unknown reason Susan had felt almost reluctant to answer him. It was as if all her disappointment and misery over

Danely's had culminated in this moment and she could not speak or think clearly about it. Her companion turned to look at her, his frank eyes curious as they took in the curve of her flushed cheek and the high brow and the tilt of her proud chin. 'You said you lived here,' he commented. 'You must know the dale well.' She laughed at that. 'Every inch of it I' she told him. 'I was born here and, apart from a few years at school, I've lived here all my life.' Suddenly her eyes clouded and the old unhappiness came back. 'My great-grandfather built the mill—Danely's, I mean—up there in the fold of the hills.' She had spoken as if it was the only mill that mattered, although it had been closed down for over a year. 'A syndicate bought it,' she went on, compelled by some urge stronger than her own will to discuss it all at last. 'My father had been losing money for years and when he was taken ill he was forced to sell out to these people. Now they've sold it again.' There was a silence in which he took out a pipe and began to fill it. 'Wasn't there someone who might have carried on for your father?' he asked presently. 'My eldest brother was killed in an accident,' Susan said huskily. She still found it impossible to speak about Ralph without that overwhelming sense of loss and frustration sweeping over her. 'If he'd lived it would have been different. He would have fought for

Danely's. Paul wasn't old enough at the time to realise just how serious matters were, I suppose.' 'Paul?' he said. 'Is he a younger brother?' Susan looked away from his searching gaze, a loyalty that had been wearing thin these past few months struggling to renew itself in her heart. 'Paul never really cared for the work in the mill,' she said. 'And even if he had tried to weather the storm at the time it's doubtful if he could have done very much. One needs money for that sort of thing, and we were heavily in debt, trying to hold on to things when times were bad.' He lit his pipe without speaking, smoking reflectively while his eyes rested on the tall chimney behind the trees. 'You regret it, of course,' he suggested at last. 'The passing of the mill out of your family.' 'Of course I regret it!' she flashed. 'Anyone would! More especially as it's been taken over by a complete stranger— a retired rancher from the backwoods of Australia with more money than he knows what to do with.' 'And less polish than you would desire, even in Colourdale?' he suggested with a slight smile. 'I believe I have it in my heart to feel sorry for the fellow!' She turned to look at him. 'Why should you?' she demanded. 'He has everything in the world that he can possibly want.'

'Except, apparently, a welcome to Colourdale.' Susan flushed. 'Call me prejudiced if you like!' she retorted. 'But I can't find it in me to welcome him. He's splashed his money about, buying up everything within sight—the mill, the house, even some of the furniture that we were forced to leave there, and all with a maddening air of authority that must be typical of the man! My impression of him is that he would ride roughshod over anyone to get what he wanted, and, apparently, he wanted Danely's.' 'But surely the fact that he means to reopen the mill compensates for a little of all this,' he suggested. Susan frowned. 'I suppose so,' she agreed reluctantly. 'He'll find difficulty with the workers, though,' she added in the next breath. 'Danely's old employees won't take kindly to a new master.' He met her defiant eyes with a sudden hardness in his which turned the blue completely to grey, like the water in the hilltop tarns when a storm is brewing. 'You're looking for this attitude on the part of the workers?' he suggested bluntly, and Susan had the grace to feel ashamed. 'Oh, I know I shouldn't feel like this!' she cried impulsively. 'But how can I help it? Danely's has always meant so much to me and we've always had their loyalty. I was brought up to consider myself part of all this.' She swept her hand almost despairingly to include the mill, and the dale and the green hills rising over it. 'We were part of its tradition, and then, suddenly, it's all whisked away, bought up by a stranger who'll work it for all he can get out of it

and then leave it, perhaps, to die a second death when he's finished with it. It may even be a rich man's whim, coming to settle in England and dabble in wool because he made his money out of wool down under!' He smiled at her use of a colloquialism. 'If only I'd been a boy,' Susan exclaimed, 'this would never have happened!' He turned then, looking down into her eyes with a remoteness that had not been there in the beginning. 'A great many things happen over which we have no control,' he said. 'And, personally, I'm rather glad that you weren't born a boy!' He strode back across the heather with Taffy sniffing at his heels and ready to do battle if the mastiff descended from the car, and Susan stood as if the power had suddenly been taken from her limbs, rigid and still where he had left her. 'Goodbye, Miss Danely,' he called across the intervening distance. 'I wouldn't worry too much about the Australian barbarians if I were you. They may settle down in Colour- dale and become quite useful citizens one day.' She watched the car gather speed as it began the descent into the dale, a tightness in her throat for which she could not account. She strained her eyes to watch the long black car winding through the dale and catch a glimpse of it as it climbed the hill on the other side, but either she had miscalculated its speed or the mist of sudden disappointment before her eyes had blurred her vision, because there was no sign of it even where the road left the shelter of the trees and ran beneath the bare shoulder of Colour Pike.

Leaving the road, she took a narrow path across the heather and was immediately hailed by a known voice. 'Hi there, Sue! Why so fast? One would almost think you were running away!' She looked up to see Roger Hoyland riding towards her on his father's big bay, a dark, athletic-looking young man in perfectlycut breeches and a faultlessly-tailored hacking jacket. She had known him all her life, but in that moment she found something lacking in Roger which her chance acquaintance in the black car had possessed in abundance. Instantly ashamed of drawing comparisons, she grew angry with herself. What had come upon her that she should measure her old friends by the yardstick of a stranger's oddly insinuating charm? 'Why should I run away?' she challenged. 'There's no one on the moors to run from.' 'What about your friend in the black Jaguar?' Roger asked, a hint of jealousy underlying the light banter of his tone. 'I saw you surveying the dale together in an attitude of joint ownership that was most intriguing.' A deep colour ran up under Susan's skin and her bright eyes clouded. 'I'm sorry, Sue!' he apologised instantly. 'I shouldn't have said that, knowing how you feel about Danely's.' He got down from the saddle to walk beside her. 'The new owner moves in today, but I suppose you know that?' 'Yes. I watched the vans drive up. They—seem to have brought a lot of new furniture as well as what they bought from Fourstones.'

Perhaps that was the part that hurt most, her old home sheltering the strangers as well as their taking possession of the mill. While the syndicate had owned it, the house had remained unoccupied. It had stood empty, a gaunt and lonely reminder, for Susan, at least, of the happy days of her childhood when all the world had seemed to lie at her feet. She knew that her father was happy enough at Windyridge, content with the management of a few sheep and absorbed in his old hobby of painting, but she had never been able to think of Windyridge as home. Her mind still clung to the thought of Fourstones as it had been when her mother was alive, the warm, virile home-place with love and happiness making it secure. 'I wonder what these people are like,' Roger mused. 'I've heard that the old man owned a fabulous sheep station in Queensland before he retired, but why he should want to come and live in a place like Colourdale beats me!' Susan turned on him sharply. 'Are you still so anxious to leave the dale?' she asked. He shrugged his slim shoulders. 'What chance have I, even if I were anxious?' he demanded. 'You know what my old man is like. "I built up this business by the sweat of my brow and, by God, lad, you'll carry it on with a good grace or I'll want to know the reason why!"' he quoted. 'If he sees the "good grace" as nothing more than reluctant submission, I can't help that,' he added resentfully. Susan felt uncomfortable, as she always did when either of the Hoylands spoke about their father. She had been brought up with Lena and Roger, taught to consider them as good neighbours rather

than a rival family in the woollen trade, but long ago she had recognised Ben Hoyland's utter ruthlessness. 'However your father and you disagree,' she pointed out, 'there's Hoyland's to consider. It's a family affair, Roger, just as Danely's used to be.' 'And it's my duty to stay here,' he added mockingly. 'I know all that, Sue, and I'm willing to stay, if only you'll make it worth my while.' His arm went round her waist and he drew her to him, hopeful of submission, but Susan swung round instantly and was free. 'Don't ask me to make promises just now, Roger,' she begged. 'You know I can't—not while there's all this about Danely's.' He stopped in his tracks, slipping the rein over his arm. 'I can't see what difference Danely's makes,' he objected, coming up behind her to imprison her in a tight grip. 'It's still the same solution, Sue. Marry me and we'll see this thing through together.' He could not understand her refusal when he was offering her so much. 'You'll get over your disappointment in time. You'll forget Danely's -' 'Forget it!' She turned on him, her eyes flashing their disdain of his suggestion. 'How can you say such a thing? How could I ever forget while it stands up there among the hills, the first thing I see in the morning when I open my eyes, the last thing I am conscious of every night!' 'There are lots of things we can't help. Sue,' he said awkwardly. 'Things away beyond our control, and fretting about them won't do any good.'

She recognised his words as an echo of those others, offered almost derisively by the stranger on the hill, and they did nothing to comfort her. 'It's no use!' she cried. 'I can't expect you to understand how I feel. There's nothing so important as Danely's in my life, Roger. I don't suppose there ever will be. "Bred in the bone", your father would call it. "Dyed in the wool", in fact!' She tried to laugh, freeing herself from his compelling hold, but he could see that the trouble about Danely's had gone deep. 'Would it have made any difference, Sue, if it had been my father who had bought Danely's?' Roger put the question diffidently because it was well know that Ben Hoyland's remaining ambition had been to buy Danely's in time, and become sole owner of the two mills which dominated the dale. He had shown a great deal of foresight in buying up all the land north of the chine and taking over the old Courage property, Roger thought, but he did not add this to his question about Danely's. 'It would have meant that— someone you knew would have been in possession,' he added. Susan took a full minute to answer him. She had neither love nor admiration for Benjamin Hoyland. 'It might have done,' she said uncertainly. 'Both our families have roots in the dale, though Danely's have been pulled up now -' 'While we've had all the luck?' He pulled her roughly towards him. 'You could be part of Hoyland's, Sue,' he said, 'if only you would forget about Danely's. There's no reason why you shouldn't share our luck. The mill will be mine— and yours—one day.' She turned abruptly away, aware of the concession in that reluctant 'and yours'.

'That isn't the real issue,' she pointed out. 'And a good many people would say that Danely's doesn't concern me any more. Perhaps that's true, too. Perhaps I'm just being sentimental and a fool.' She smiled up at him, but it was a smile without invitation, keeping him at a distance. 'When did you get home? I thought you'd gone to London for a week.' 'I got in last night, but it was too late to call, and you've removed yourself beyond the contact of the telephone. Sorry, Sue!' he apologised quickly when he saw her flush. 'I know it's no fault of yours that Fourstones had to go, but does your father really need to bury himself in a place like Windyridge?' 'There's more to it than that,' she answered, 'but I can't explain.' Once more it seemed that she did not think Roger would understand. 'My father loves Windyridge. He's completely happy there.' It was true that she couldn't explain these things to Roger, and she knew that it was because they had to be understood. Roger's understanding of her father was confined to a thinly-veiled criticism of a man who could be content with so little after owning so much, and in that respect he was Ben Hoyland's son. The material things in life mattered most to him. 'Since we're half-way to Peverils,' Roger suggested, 'why don't you come down and let Lena give you some tea? She told me this morning that it must be weeks since you were there.' He seemed to have forgotten his proposal, dismissing the fact that the issue had been successfully evaded once more, and Susan sighed with relief. One day her answer would have to be definite, but there were so many other things on her mind just now that she had little time to think of love.

Roger's companionship was an accepted thing; she had never given it a great deal of serious thought, and certainly she had never considered herself madly in love with him. He had been part of the dale ever .since she could remember, he and Lena, whom everyone took so much for granted, but she had never considered him as a necessary part of her life. They walked down to Peverils together, coming upon the great house round a bend in the road. Lena had seen them approaching from the window of the drawingroom and she came running to meet them, her sallow cheeks flushed with excitement. 'I thought you were never coming, Susan!' she cried. 'Surely you must be very busy when you can't find time to look in, even on your shopping days?' 'There's been so much to do,' Susan explained truthfully. 'Sheep being dipped and extra food to make, and all sorts of chores about the house.' It was a poor excuse for avoiding Peverils, but Lena accepted it. The flush in her cheeks still remained as she hurried to make tea, and when Roger came back from the stables to join them she thrust her news at them with childish eagerness. 'What do you think?' she demanded. 'I've just met the new owner of Danely's!' Susan could see that she was far too excited to think about any possible hurt she might be inflicting and, after all, she would have to hear about the new occupants of Fourstones sooner or later.

'He's quite young,' Lena rushed on. 'There must have been some mistake about his being retired. There's no mistake, though, about his being an Australian! I met him in the post office this afternoon, sending off a cable to an address in Melbourne about some packing cases which hadn't arrived.' There was no hesitation about her thirst for knowledge, her curiosity about other people's lives. 'He was very pleasant and seemed eager to know everything about the dale in the shortest possible time.' 'These people generally do,' her brother put in dryly, 'and then they forget all about it just as quickly by removing themselves to Manchester or London and treating it as an afterthought.' 'I don't think Mr Courage will do that,' Lena said earnestly. 'He told Miss Hope at the post office that he was bringing his mother and sister to Fourstones just as soon as the house was fired and he could find a suitable staff.' For the first time she appeared to remember that Four- stones had been Susan's home and her brows drew into a perplexed frown. 'Oh, Sue, I'm sorry!' she cried, as Susan turned towards the window. 'I'd forgotten about Fourstones.' 'It doesn't matter,' Susan said through stiff lips. 'Someone had to live there one day.' 'Did Mr Courage tell you if he was married?' Roger asked, reaching for his cup with apparent indifference, although there was a certain wariness in his eyes as he waited for his sister's reply. 'No, but I don't think he is,' Lena returned, smoothing her dark hair with an unconsciously revealing movement of her square, capablelooking hand. 'Surely he would have mentioned his wife if he had one when he spoke so freely about his mother and sister?'

'Surely!' Roger agreed, permitting himself a glance in Susan's direction. 'So now we have an eligible bachelor on our hands to complicate matters,' he observed unpleasantly. 'How soon have you asked him to call, Lena?' His sister's embarrassment was painful to watch. 'You needn't be so unkind,' she reproved. 'They seem to be very nice people.' 'I'm sure they are, if you say so,' he mocked, 'but they're bound to upset things. I'll be surprised if the old man rushes to meet them with open arms, for instance. You said their name was Courage, didn't you?' he added slowly. 'They wouldn't be any relation of the Courages who once graced Peverils, by any chance? Before our respected parent bought them out, I mean. Not that it matters,' he added glibly. 'We don't keep a great deal of company here these days, anyway.' 'It would be nice to have neighbours again,' Lena said. 'Mrs Courage may be the homely type.' How often Lena's thoughts reverted to the home atmosphere, Susan mused, as she forced herself to join the brother and sister by the fire. Suddenly she stopped, frozen into immobility as her thoughts rushed back to a black car winding downwards to the valley floor. 'When you met—the new owner of Danely's, Lena, was he alone?' Her voice seemed to come from some great distance, but at least it sounded calm.

'Why—yes.' Lena looked surprised. 'Except, that is, for a dog. It was a bull mastiff, a great, powerful beast that followed him about like a lamb!' The sound which escaped Susan's lips was incomprehensible and two pairs of hazel eyes searched hers in the firelight. 'Sue,' Lena asked anxiously, 'is there anything wrong?' 'Nothing.' Susan took up her cup and attempted to drink her tea, but she felt as if she were being strangled, as if the large, stereotyped drawing-room was slowly closing in on her, crushing her and making breathing an impossibility. When Ben Hoyland came in she was quick to make her escape. 'I really must go,' she said. 'I promised Father I wouldn't be late, and it's after five.' Ben surveyed her from beneath his bushy grey eyebrows. He hadn't a great deal of time for old Danely, he mused, but the girl had what he called 'spunk'. She'd make a good enough wife for Roger when the time came, since she had been born and bred in the dale. There would be no city notions in her head about London flats and spending brass away from the north, where it was earned! He took his tea and poured some of it into his saucer to cool it. 'I'm hearing there's a new owner up at Danely's,' he remarked conversationally. 'Happen we'll all get to know him, in time, but he'll need to have plenty of brass to throw away before he puts that place into shape again.' Susan was aware of Ben Hoyland's ambition to own both mills, aware, too, that he had considered that he had plenty of time to

think about buying Danely's and settle the transaction in his own way. 'He's an Australian,' Ben rumbled on. 'Full of confidence and bombast and new-fangled ideas, I warrant, but we'll maybe show him summat about wool once he gets here!' 'He is here,' Lena ventured, not quite sure of the reception her knowledge would meet. 'I saw him today, when I went to the post office to buy some stamps. He seems very nice,' she added flatly when her father turned to glare at her. 'We'll not be having any truck with them,' Ben declared. 'Let them find their own feet in the dale. He'll be married, I dare say, and setting up in a social way, I've no doubt.' He was still glaring at Lena, since she appeared to be the only one ready to offer him the information. 'No,' she told him with a tentative smile, 'he's not. At least, I don't think he can be. He said he was bringing his mother and sister to Fourstones quite soon.' Ben flung his head back and laughed uproariously. 'A spare-time treat for the ladies, eh?' he suggested. 'An eligible bachelor! Well, I never!' He turned to Susan with an irascible grunt. You'll be in this, too, I warrant! You'll have met the man, I dare say, an' now you'll be joining the matrimonial parade wi' the rest o' them?' Susan turned at the door and her voice sounded like ice tinkling against glass.

'I may have met him,' she said slowly, her face suddenly very white, 'but there's absolutely no fear of my joining any sort of parade that might lead to the new owner of Danely's.' Before anyone could speak, she had gone, and Roger, lumbering to his feet to follow her, was not in time to catch her before she had escaped through the gateway on to the moor. He went slowly back to the house, considering that more active pursuit would be futile with Susan in her present mood. Lena was still in the drawing-room when he entered it by the long windows leading to the terrace, but his father had gone. 'It's surprising,' he said, 'how bitter dale folk can be. Susan's like a good many more, dyed-in-the-wool Colour- dale! Colourdale sheep, Colourdale wool, Colourdale blankets! They're all part of the dale and Susan Danely! Our Australian friend isn't going to find things easy just at first,' he mused with a certain amount of relish. 'Did you hear that last remark of Susan's? She can be as adamant as the devil when her mind is made up!' 'It may not matter at all to Mr Courage what Susan thinks or does,' Lena pointed out with a sudden tightening of her lips. 'After all, he bought the mill from the syndicate and might consider that she has nothing to do with it.' 'The mill's still Danely's,' her brother reminded her almost scathingly. 'It will never be any other than Danely's in Colourdale, and that's about the first thing your Mr Courage is going to find out.' 'It won't worry him one little bit!' Lena predicted with surprising animation. 'He looked like a trier to me. The cast of his jaw alone would spell determination, but there's a look in his eyes, too,

which just won't admit defeat. He won't have time for Susan and her petty little hates,' she added with slightly less conviction. 'They won't be able to touch him!' Surprised by such an outburst, Roger looked at her searchingly. 'I thought Sue was your friend,' he chided maliciously. 'Really, Lena, I had no idea you possessed such unplumbed depths!' She drew back as if he had struck her. 'All right!' she cried. 'Make fun of me if you wish, but I know about these people! I know they want to be friendly, and I mean to call on them just as soon as Mrs Courage gets settled in at Fourstones. It's the right thing to do, though some people consider it old-fashioned nowadays!' Roger took out his case and lit a cigarette, watching her deliberately, thinking that he had never really known Lena, never given her credit for being able to think for herself. 'It looks as if there might be fun and games in Colour- dale before very long,' he reflected, 'and you and I are going to be part of them, my dear sister!' Lena stooped to gather up the teacups with hands that were not quite steady. 'I wonder if Father knows their name yet?' she said. 'The Courages, I mean. Do you think it possible that they might have belonged here?' 'Highly improbable!' Roger told her, because he was thinking of something else.

CHAPTER TWO SUSAN took the short cut home, the corgi following close at her heels as she climbed swiftly on the narrow, uphill path. She felt bitter and sore, more bitter than she had any right to feel, she acknowledged. Why hadn't he told her straight away who he was instead of allowing her to talk, even offering her his sympathy? She would meet him again, of course. It was inevitable in so small a place as the dale, and her mouth quivered as she envisaged their second encounter. He would be amused, or vaguely tolerant, and at the back of his mind he would despise her. Humiliated, she wanted to fling herself down on the rough gorse and feel its harshness digging into her flesh in sharp, physical pain, or run in the opposite direction, away from Windyridge and the spur of rock above the dark gash of the Witches' Cauldron that had witnessed their chance meeting. But she did neither of these things. Habit took her homewards. Her father would be waiting for her, worrying, perhaps, that she had not returned. She saw him standing at the door as she breasted the last rise, a short, bowed figure leaning heavily on his stick, his eyes searching along the way she would come, and suddenly she felt a deep and penetrating shame for all she had said in the name of Danely. Courteous and infallibly kind, no matter what had befallen him, her father would never have greeted a stranger in their midst as she had done. Whatever he had thought, whatever had been his innermost feelings about the mill, the spoken word would never have stung. Remorse gripped her as she ran towards him and put an impulsive arm about his shoulders. 'I'm sorry I'm late, Dad,' she apologized. 'I've been down to Peverils and Lena insisted that I should 'stay to tea.'

'That's all right, lass,' he said. 'I'm glad you went there. You need young company like anyone of your age.' He patted her arm as he led the way into the house. 'I've waited my tea for you, so you can infuse it and have another cup with me.' Crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, he walked by sheer force of willpower, and that alone would have refuted Ben Hoyland's opinion of him. No one who really knew Daniel Danely could have accused him of lack of courage, but perhaps it was only Susan who realised how great had been his personal struggle to keep the mill's head above water. That, and his continuing illhealth, had forced him to sell Fourstones and retire to the remote old farmhouse on the moor which was now their home, and she had done her best to make Windyridge a home in the true sense of the word, modelling it on Fourstones as she remembered it when her mother was still alive. She knew that her father appreciated the fact and was deeply grateful for all she did for him. If some of the heart had gone out of him at the untimely death of his elder son, he tried not to show it, and Paul's adamant decision to leave the dale had been accepted with equal patience. He had even blamed himself for encouraging Paul to put his art first. 'I didn't eat a thing at Peverils because I knew you would be waiting,' Susan told him as she took off her jacket in the narrow hall. 'Besides, it would have been such a waste to have baked all morning and not come back to sample it!' His smile was worth the effort she had made, and she crossed the big living-room to stir the fire into a blaze. Even in the summer weather Windyridge could be cold round about five o'clock and he had forgotten about the fire, as he generally did when he was busy with his painting. To cover the fact that she could not eat much, she picked up the half-finished watercolour from the chair where

he had set it down when he had come to meet her, holding it away from her to view it to full advantage. 'It's the watermill,' she said, 'and the beck that runs through the Courage fields!' It was surprising, she thought, how the old names stuck, even after years. She could not remember the time when there had been Courages at Peverils. Ben Hoyland had always been the blustering owner of the mill and the lovely old house adjoining it as far back as she could remember, and she had never heard her father speak of the former owner. 'You've caught all the colour of the moor,' she went on appreciatively. 'The distances, and the first autumn tints that make it a little sad. Is this to be the companion picture to the one you did of the mill in the spring?' He nodded eagerly. 'I thought they'd make a pretty pair,' he said, some of the tiredness fading out of his lined face as he came to look over her shoulder at his handiwork. 'When your grandfather used to catch me painting instead of getting on with my costing,' he added with a reminiscent smile, 'he would be furious. He considered art the greatest humbug. "Drawin' pictures!" he would growl. "Paintin' stuff on canvas that ye can see anywhere ye like to look!" It was a rare compliment, as far as I was concerned, the proof I needed that my work was recognisable. And he never cured me of it!' 'Is that why you were so lenient with Paul when he wanted to go off to London and make it his career?' Susan asked as she poured him a second cup of tea. She knew that they would have to speak about Paul some time. 'We haven't heard from him for months,' she added slowly, 'and I know you've been anxious, but you know what Paul is. He won't have forgotten. It'll just be that he hasn't realized how quickly time has passed.'

'I suppose you're right,' he said, but his voice was heavy with the anxiety he had not shown until now, and his eyes were wistful as he wondered about his son. Susan passed him his favourite scones, turning the conversation to Windyridge because there did not seem to be anything further to say about Paul at the moment, but it was not long before she sensed a vagueness about her father's replies which suggested that his mind might be on other things besides sheep and the .state of the weather. She met his eyes across the table. 'You know?' she asked in a constrained voice. 'You know about Fourstones?' 'I heard it from Sam Birkbeck when he came up with the letters.' There was no resentment in his tone and he looked almost glad that the old house should be occupied at last. 'It will mean there'll be work for the whole dale instead of just for the people Ben Hoyland can employ,' he added with the deepest satisfaction. 'But how can you bear the thought of a stranger at Danely's?' Susan cried. 'Living at Fourstones, where we were all so happy -' 'I'll be hoping they'll be happy there, too,' he said quietly, watching her as she turned away to fumble with the cups. 'Would you rather Ben Hoyland had got the mill, Sue?' he asked gently. She did not know. She was surprised and almost hurt at his philosophical acceptance of the changes she deplored so much. He loved Danely's and Colourdale and the broad surrounding moors, and yet he was not really troubled to see it all passing to a stranger. For the first time in her life she felt out of tune with him, felt him lacking in the sympathy she had come to expect.

'At least,' she said in a choked undertone, 'the Hoylands wouldn't have been complete strangers.' The remark had been forced from her by the memory of the interlude on the moor, because it still smarted, but deep in her heart she acknowledged her dislike of Ben Hoy- land and something that was almost relief at the fact that he had failed to get the mill, after all. A small shiver ran through her as she rose to clear away the tea. In such a short space of time so much seemed to have changed. The peace which had always been part of the quiet dale seemed to be evaporating like mist before the sun and even her friendship with the Hoylands seemed to be involved in the advent of the new owner of Danely's mill. Her father was so blissfully content with the hobby which had come to occupy all his spare time, yet she recognised a certain almost pitiful desire to prove himself to the world through his paintings and wished passionately that she could help. Frustration rose in her like an enveloping tide. They were all seeking something, and fulfilment seemed to be just that step ahead of them. Once again she found herself wishing that she had been older and more experienced when Danely's had first been in danger and then, as clearly as if they had been uttered again at her elbow, she was remembering the parting words with which the new owner of Danely's had left her on the moor. 'A great many things happen over which we have no control. And, personally, I'm rather glad that you weren't born a boy!' He had recognised the fact that he would never have owned Danely's if she had been? Anger flamed in her and the old determination to avoid the Courages at all costs renewed itself a

hundredfold. If Lena Hoyland intended to seek them out, at least she could remain aloof. She was disappointed in Lena, who had always made a great deal of fuss about being her friend. Graham Courage did not prove the type of man who waited to be sought out, however. He lost no time in making himself acquainted in the dale where he thought it necessary and he went over the silent mill the very next day. When old Ezra Proffit, the caretaker, took him over the mill he wanted to know where all Danely's old employees had gone. Ezra scratched his head, answering him with a certain amount of reticence. 'Some o' them went elsewheres,' he explained. 'To Ben Hoyland and out o' the dale as far afield as Rochdale, and others stayed where they were and got work on the farms at harvest and the like. Ay,' he mused speculatively, 'a good many left the dale as never would have gone if there had been work for them to do.' 'I thought I might have difficulty in getting people to work for me,' Graham Courage said bluntly. Ezra looked taken aback, and this time he pulled thoughtfully at his ear, sure sign that he was at a loss for an answer. 'I wouldn't be saying that, sir, exactly,' he declared at length. 'It's maybe that folks have long memories in these parts an' staunch loyalties, but I'm thinking work's work, all the same, and most o' them will be right glad to see it again this side o' Colour Pike.' The new owner walked ahead of him into the dusty and deserted offices.

'The first essential will be office staff,' he remarked. 'Who ran that side of things under the former owners?' 'Miss Danely helped her father in the last two years,' Ezra said almost reluctantly. 'They say she knew all there was to know about the office side of the business. She came to it straight from school, and it was in her bones, so to speak.' 'I can well imagine that,' Courage said with a grim smile. 'Was there no one else?' 'No, sir. Miss Susan was very capable in all she did and she carried on till everything was finally wound up.' 'I see.' The new owner crossed to the window to look out through the dusty panes. He could just see the shoulder of the hill above the Witches' Cauldron where the road came down from the north, and it seemed to hold his interest to the exclusion of all else for a moment. 'What happened to old Danely when the mill was sold?' he asked at last. 'He took to keeping a few sheep up there on the hill an' painting pictures.' The younger man looked round, surprised. 'Painting?' 'He's an artist, like.' Ezra was finding it difficult to explain something he could not quite understand. 'Not that he makes much out of it, of course,' he continued, 'there being nobody hereabouts

to buy his pictures, but he always was one for putting his ideas down on a bit of paper. I mind fine when we were at the school together he would be drawing a likeness o' the master instead of attending to what was being taught him!' 'And Miss Susan?' Courage asked. 'Does she live up there with him?' 'Ay, she keeps house for him. Miss Susan was never one for leaving the dale,' Ezra said. 'It gave her all she wanted.' He paused before he added bluntly: 'It might have been a better thing if Mr Paul had stuck to Danely's instead of going off to London to learn to draw. It would have given Miss Susan more freedom, for one thing.' 'But you say she wouldn't have left the dale,' Courage pointed out. 'She would have found work here if she had needed it?' 'There was nothing she knew about, except the office work here at the mill.' Ezra's answer appeared to give his new employer room for thought, but it was a full week before he put the plan which had crystallised in his mind into action. The offices had been swept and cleaned and the machinery in the mill itself checked and run in before he set out for Windyridge in search of Susan, and if his manner of setting about a project was more forthright than Colourdale was accustomed to expect, that could be safely put down to his Australian attitude to such things. When you wanted something badly enough, you came straight to the point and asked for it. Susan saw. him from the sitting-room window coming up the hill towards Windyridge. Her heart pounded against her breast like a

hunted animal's, but she stood her ground and would not turn away. He was coming straight for the house, his long, loose strides carrying him across the rough ground without effort, and Taffy ran out to intercept him in his accustomed way. He took little notice of the dog, speaking a word or two to silence him as he came confidently on. Her face slightly flushed and her lips compressed into a firm line. Susan went to meet him, and she had reached the paddock gate before they came face to face. She had no intention of inviting him into the house, and she sensed that he noticed the fact. It did not seem to daunt him, however, for he wished her a pleasant goodmorning. 'I've come about Danely's,' he began without unnecessary preliminary. 'I'd like to have a word with you, if you can spare me the time.' He glanced about him, as if he thought that she might suggest somewhere other than across a barred gate where they might talk in comfort, but Susan did not make him any offer. She stood where she was, waiting for him to continue, her face devoid of colour now, her eyes stonily upon his. 'Miss Danely,' he said bluntly, 'I've come to ask you to take back your old job at the mill. You know Danely's better than I do, and there's no one else to fill the position in the office.' Shaken and white to the lips, Susan faced him across the gate. 'You dare to come here, making an offer like that!' she cried. His lips tightened a fraction, but he said reasonably:

'Why not? You love the place and I have to fill the job. You can't tell me you don't care about Danely's any more.' Ruthless, riding roughshod over every emotion to gain his own ends, the man was evidently a business automaton without a heart, Susan thought furiously, wondering how she could ever have considered his new-world bluntness refreshing when they had first met. Her hands clenched over the top bar of the gate till the knuckles stood out white against her flesh. 'When I need a job as badly as that, Mr Courage,' she said icily, 'I shall find one outside the dale.' He moved closer, holding her eyes with a ruthless determination in his own which was strangely at variance with his former mood of easy-going friendship. 'And what if Danely's needs you?' he demanded. 'You haven't thought of it in that way, have you? You know the work, you know the mill, and you know the people who live here. You know the men and women who worked for your father in the past. Your services would be invaluable to me—and Danely's. I won't stint your salary. You can rest assured about that.' 'Money!' she retorted with fine scorn. 'You think it will buy anything. But there are some things it won't buy, Mr Courage— among them loyalty!' He smiled tolerantly. 'I believe you've thrown that at me before,' he said. 'You think I'm going to have the devil of a job peopling my mill when it comes to the bit, don't you? Well, we'll see, but I guess money is as

necessary an evil in the old country as it is down under. It talks, loud and clear, Miss Danely. I've never known it otherwise.' 'It can't talk me into a job I'd rather die than take!' Susan told him stubbornly, and instantly his hand came down on her clenched fingers on the top bar of the gate. 'And you talk of caring what becomes of Danely's!' he said quietly. 'That first day you said you would have done anything to save the mill.' The colour flooded into her cheeks in a swift, embarrassing wave. 'That first day!' she repeated, choking over the words. 'You were despicable! You knew who I was and you let me talk on, saying what I felt about Danely's. You did nothing to stop me. Perhaps you thought it amusing, seeing how deeply someone could be hurt by the past, but I didn't find it amusing. Your conduct was the meanest thing I've ever known!' 'Really backwoods, in fact?' His smile was suddenly disarming, but the words stung. 'It wouldn't be the slightest use, would it, if I offered to apologize?' 'Not the slightest!' She tried to draw her hand away, but he retained it in a tightened grip and his eyes lost some of their blue as he said: 'So it's war to the knife. I'm sorry about that, because there's no doubt, you know, who's bound to win in the end.' Suddenly she was free and he was striding off across the moor without a backward glance. She had angered him, but that did not matter, Susan told herself. It would let him understand how things

would always be between them, and nothing he could say or do would alter the fact that he had deceived her in the first place. When she reached the house she put on her coat and took down her shopping basket from the hook behind the kitchen door, still shaken by that second encounter with a man she was resolved to hate. She wanted to get away from the house, away from the scene of their meeting, which had resulted in a peculiar kind of victory for Graham Courage. He had held all the cards, of course, taking her by surprise with his impertinent offer. How could he ever imagine that she would work at Danely's—for him? The women she met in Colourdyke were silently sympathetic as she passed them. All their talk would naturally be of the mill these days, speculating about its new owner with a keen appreciation of her own feelings in the circumstances, but she did not stop to speak to anyone until Will Jameson came along. She pulled up because she had heard that Will's wife was ill again and she had always taken a deep interest in the affairs of the dale. 'How is Sara, Will?' she asked. 'I only heard yesterday that she'd been taken to hospital.' The man touched his cap respectfully. Both he and his wife had worked at Danely's at one time. 'She's nicely, Miss Susan. Going on nicely,' he repeated as if the words were a joy to him. 'I was in Leeds yesterday seeing her, and she's real comfortable. The doctor says she should be home in a week or two.' 'And how are you managing at home?' Susan asked, 'have you someone to look after the children?'

'A neighbour comes in. They're well cared for, miss, but thank you for asking, all the same." There was a brief pause. 'And how goes the job, Will?' Susan asked. He just managed to avoid her eyes. 'Not so well, miss. I was never cut out for work on the land.' 'The mill's reopening,' Susan said harshly. 'But maybe you wouldn't be wanting to work at Danely's for a stranger, Will.' He looked down at his shabby boots and she could have torn her own words to shreds in the silence. A wave of shame swept over her -as she remembered that Will had a wife and five children. 'Money were always good at mill,' he murmured. 'Mr Courage be putting it about that conditions will be even better now.' Recoiling before the bitterness of her own thoughts, Susan said quickly: 'All right, Will! I should never have said what I did just now.' 'It's not that we aren't loyal, miss,' he tried to convince her, deeply embarrassed. 'It's just that bairns must eat, and they eat best when the wages are coming in regular, like.' Susan nodded. She could not trust herself to speak for a moment. . 'Yes, Will,' she said at last. 'Loyalty doesn't really come into it.' It was a full week before she saw Graham Courage again and then, surprisingly, it was on her own doorstep.

She had been to Colourdyke, and when she returned with Taffy panting at her heels and her shopping basket over her arm she noticed a fine hunter tethered to the gatepost. The spirited creature was restive and shied away at Taffy's immediate challenge, and she looked up to see Graham Courage walking round the gable end of the house with her father. They looked very much like old friends, and her father was smiling as he listened to the younger man. It was impossible for Susan to try to avoid them because they turned and waited for her to come up. She called Taffy away from the horse rather angrily. 'Still as belligerent as ever!' Graham said, stooping to ruffle the dog's coat, but he had let his eyes rest for a moment on her own set face and the determined line of her tilted chin. 'Mr Courage has come up to ask about Crofts,' her father explained, 'but Bill Marley's away at Leeds for the day.' Susan looked up, her expression sharpening. Crofts was the neighbouring sheep farm shortly to come on to the market because its owner was about to retire. 'You'll be getting the best sheep farm in the district there, Mr Courage,' her father added,, turning back to his visitor. 'But then there's nothing I can tell you about sheep!' 'I ran a big station in Queensland,' the younger man confessed. 'My father made his money out of wool, but my mother always wanted to come back to this country, and when my father died I made her that promise.'

So that was his reason for coming to England! He had made a promise and he would not go back on his word to someone he loved. Susan remembered how he had said that many things happened over which one had no control, and she found herself wondering if he had left Australia reluctantly. She felt vaguely uneasy, but she still would not welcome him to Windyridge. Crofts was a blow, too. She had dreamed one day of possessing that land, of expanding Windyridge and increasing their stock, but the opportunity to buy had come before they were ready and now she would be forced to count it as lost while a stranger bought it as a whim! She stood with the heavy basket in her hands, waiting for him to stand aside so that she could enter the house. How could she possibly like this man? How could she ever come to feel friendly towards him? He took so much for granted, acquiring everything with such arrogant ease, as if it was his birthright! Her father had never borne animosity in his life, and certainly he wasn't doing it now, but she would never welcome Graham Courage to Windyridge! 'You'll come in, Mr Courage?' her father asked. 'I've been waiting till Susan got back before I had my drinkings. You'll not have heard that word before!' he chuckled as he led the way into the house. 'It's common in the north among farming folk. No matter what's going on, everything stops for the drinkings at eleven o'clock and again at three in the afternoon!' 'On the contrary,' Graham Courage laughed, 'we took it with us to Australia! My father didn't change much in all the years he lived there,' he added. 'He kept up most of the old customs.' Daniel Danely turned in the doorway.

'You wouldn't be one of the Courages o' Peverils?' he asked, his blue eyes searching the younger man's. 'It must be well nigh on thirty years since Foster Courage sold out to Ben Hoyland.' 'It will be all of that.' Susan saw their visitor's face change, some of the pleasantness going out of it as he looked down into the past. 'It was just after the war. My father came back to find that a good many things had changed. The mill was not what it had been. It had been badly administered in his absence, for one thing, and he couldn't see any prospect of building it up again without a great deal of capital which, of course, he hadn't got. He sold it for a song and went to Australia. It was a good luck story after that,' he added abruptly. Susan knew that at one time Ben Hoyland had administered the mill he now owned, and she looked at their visitor curiously. He knew what it felt like to be disinherited, then. The Courage land had once been his, but there was little in his expression to tell her what he felt about it now. Even his eyes gave nothing away. 'Make Mr Courage some of that coffee o' yours, Susan,' her father said, 'and give him a home-made teacake to go with it!' His pride in her achievements was uppermost in his pleasant voice and shining in his eyes when he looked at her. 'The moor air puts an edge on a man's appetite!' Susan put her basket down on the table that was littered with the old man's paintings, far more of them than he would have had out in the ordinary way, and suddenly she realised that their visitor had come upon him at work and had already been shown his secret hoard. A sensation that was almost akin to jealousy stabbed at her, and she began to collect the miscellaneous collection of oils and water- colours into a pile to put them back in the cupboard where they were kept.

'Your father has been letting me see his work,' Graham said, coming to stand beside her. 'It shouldn't be hidden away like this. There's good stuff there.' She turned with the precious bundle in her arms. 'Perhaps,' she said coldly, 'you've already suggested what he should do about them.' 'I'd show them, if they were mine,' he answered promptly. 'They do that sort of thing in London, don't they?' Susan saw the expression in her father's eyes which she had come to know so well, half hope and half resignation, and in that moment she felt that she hated Graham Courage more than ever. It was all very well for him to talk of shows and London when he had the money to launch them. 'Unfortunately,' she said bluntly, 'those things take time and money, far more money than we possess.' 'Ay, that's so,' the old man agreed without bitterness. 'It would be something of a risk anyway, wouldn't it?' he added. 'Folks seem to be far more interested in futuristic art nowadays, tangents and angles and blobs of colour to represent a man's thoughts instead of what he sees with his eyes, as Constable saw, and Landseer, and Rubens.' And Daniel Danely, Susan thought with a lump at her throat, wishing passionately that she had the power to make her father's dreams come true. If only they had had the money to put on some kind of show!

Graham Courage took out his pipe and lit it, making no further comment about the paintings. He seemed watchful of Susan now, treading carefully where she was concerned. 'I've an experiment or two I would like to try out at Crofts,' he was telling her father when she brought the coffee through from the kitchen, and she told herself that she did not want to hear about his experiments. She had no interest in them, nor in the man himself. He rose to help her with the tray and their hands touched as he took it from her. She felt the strength of his fingers as she had felt it once before, fastening over her own out there on the gate, and the contact sent the hot blood rushing to her cheeks. Swiftly she relinquished her hold on the tray, letting him carry it to the table and set it down near her father's chair. She saw him look round the warm, friendly room with a certain appreciation as he found himself somewhere to sit. 'This reminds me of Romaro,' he said. 'Everything was much the same, except that the homestead was built of wood and we had a stove instead of an open fire. I think that was what my mother missed more than anything else. We were miles, too, from our nearest neighbour. Twenty miles, to be exact.' Which signified the extent of his holding, Susan thought, although she could not exactly accuse him of boastfulness. She believed that Australian sheep stations were large and remote places where friendship and good neighbourliness were greatly prized. Suddenly she bit her lip. Well, this wasn't Australia, and they weren't Graham Courage's only neighbour! He did not mention his family again until he was ready to go. He had eaten Susan's tea-cakes with relish and sampled two cups of

her excellent coffee, but he did not tell her how much he had enjoyed them, possibly from fear of a rebuff. He protested when his host attempted to rise to see him to the door. 'Please don't get up, sir,' he said. 'You've walked around with me quite a lot this morning and you must be tired. Thanks for the drinkings, more especially since I've been living on bought things since I got here.' It was the first time he had referred directly to Four- stones, and Susan turned to the door with him, wondering if he was still living there alone. 'I'm expecting my family to arrive tomorrow,' he said when they reached the open air. 'They've been staying in London these past two weeks, buying odds and ends, but my mother wants to get settled in as quickly as possible.' He hesitated, studying her averted profile with a puzzled frown between his dark brows. 'Would you come and meet her?' he asked. 'She'd be very pleased.' 'I'd rather not, Mr Courage.' The bald, unfriendly refusal was out before she could control it and she saw a pulse beating suddenly high in his tanned cheek, but he answered her with surprising understanding. 'Of course, Fourstones was your home at one time. I'm sorry. All the same, I know that my mother would make you feel welcome if you could bring yourself to come. There's no need for us to remain strangers.' There was no suggestion of pleading in the strong voice; he merely stated what was, to him, a fact.

Susan avoided the searching look in his blue eyes. Her pulses were hammering fast and every nerve in her body seemed to be beating a mad tattoo. There-was something about this man which she must steel herself against right from the beginning if she was ever to know any real peace of mind. 'I'm afraid we don't look at these things as complacently as you do, Mr Courage,' she told him coldly. 'Our roots go deep here in England. There may, of course, be some sort of advantage in being born in a younger country.' A spark of anger lit the blue eyes and his mouth tightened perceptibly. 'We haven't a lot of time for humbug,' he said. 'Yes, that's true. You see, we have to get on with the job out there, or someone else will.' She took his words as a personal taunt and it was insufferable, but he strode off without waiting to hear what she had to say. She watched him reach the gate and ride away, his tall, lean body silhouetted for a moment against the skyline before he turned his horse's head down across the dale in the direction of Fourstones. It was some considerable time before she could bring herself to return to the house and smile reassuringly at her father. 'It seems that Foster Courage's lad has come back,' he mused, a smile curving his generous mouth as he thought about their visitor. 'Maybe he's come to settle an old score with Ben Hoyland, or maybe it's just roots that's brought him home to the dale.' Susan turned from the window to look at him. 'You're—sure that the Courages once belonged here?'

He nodded reminiscently. 'Before your day it was,' he said. 'Before you were born. The mill down at the beck was theirs. Abraham Courage built it when your great-grandfather built Danely's, and his son and grandson carried it on when wool wasn't tramelled up wi' cotton an' nylon an' other trash to make a substitute for warmth as it is nowadays. There was no 'percentage' of wool in things in those days. It was all pure and clean off the sheep's back! Foster Courage was a hard-working man, but he fell on hard times, like the rest of us, and Ben Hoyland was waiting to buy him out when he came back from the war. It wasn't what you could have called a fair deal, for Ben had managed the mill while Foster Courage was away fighting for his country, but it's almost been forgotten now. "Maybe Foster Courage never really forgot, though, even when he made good with his sheep in Australia and brought up his family there.' 'There's—just the one son?' Susan asked stiltedly. 'Just the one,' he agreed. 'But there's a lass, too, about your own age. She's coming with the mother as soon as Fourstones can be got ready for them. Anyway,' he concluded, as if summing it all up in his own mind, 'the lad's made o' the right stuff, it would seem. He's a Courage all right!' Susan crossed slowly to the fire. 'You don't bear them any grudge, Dad, do you?' she said. 'No, lass,' he answered. 'And neither should you.'

CHAPTER THREE RESTLESSLY Susan filled in her days. There was plenty to do at Windyridge, where she had no help in the house, but even when her domestic chores were finished there were long hours when she felt both lonely and at a loss. Roger had gone to Manchester to some sort of conference, representing his father, and she supposed that she must be missing him, and Lena, who used to come regularly to Windyridge, had ceased to come. In the end, it was Susan who went to Peverils. She had always tried to avoid Ben Hoyland because she disliked and distrusted the man, so she chose the early afternoon to pay her call, when she knew that he would be busy at the mill. Peverils had been built on a loop of the river where the bank jutted out to form a green sward surrounded on three sides by water. It stood high, on a sort of platform, and it was screened from the road by a small beech plantation, the only sizeable trees in the whole dale. The others, the trees surrounding Fourstones and those which sheltered Windyridge from the north, were for the most part stunted thorn, clinging to a precarious foothold on the windswept moor. Peverils had always seemed to Susan to be a gentle house in spite of its blustering owner, as if a finer presence still lingered there, haunting the elaborately-furnished rooms with a sigh for past simplicity and past beauty. She found the front door flung open to the August sunshine and Lena arranging flowers in a massive copper urn in the hall. She turned at the sound of Susan's footsteps on the gravel drive and Taffy rushed up the steps to be recognized.

When Lena straightened from patting the dog's thick coat, Susan noticed that she had done her hair in a different way, dressing it more flatteringly to give her face a softer look, but she could not comment upon the change because Lena's eyes were fixed upon her, challenging her right to remark about her appearance. 'Oh,' she said, 'it's you!' and Susan imagined disappointment in her tone. 'I thought if I didn't come down we wouldn't see each other for weeks!' she remarked easily as she flung Taffy's lead on to the wooden settle near the fireplace. 'Have you been away?' Lena paused for a moment before she answered, inserting the last vivid marigold in the urn with her head critically on one side. 'I've been busy,' she said evasively. 'Roger is still in Manchester, but he's expected back this afternoon.' 'Oh,' Susan said, 'I won't wait, then. He'll want to get settled in and your father will be waiting to hear the Manchester news.' Lena smiled. 'Why should you want to run away from Roger?' she asked. 'You know his first port of call will probably be Windyridge.' She glanced at the clock, a ponderous grandfather with a bold face and strident voice which had always reminded Susan of Ben Hoyland himself. 'You may as well stay and have some tea, now that you're here.' The invitation was just short of cordial, but Susan told herself that she should be used to Lena's moods by this time. She was probably annoyed because she had not put in an appearance before this when Roger was away.

'I haven't seen that dress before, have I?' she commented as she followed the older girl into the big, over- furnished drawing-room. 'It suits you, Lena. Yellow's your colour.' Lena permitted herself a glance in the ornate, gilt-framed mirror above the mantelpiece, smoothing her hair in the old way but with an added confidence. 'I asked Roger to have it sent through from Manchester,' she confessed. 'I couldn't go up to Fourstones looking like a rag-bag.' Fourstones! The word electrified Susan, standing in the room between them like a naked sword. 'So you've been to visit the Courages?' she asked. Lena's head went up. 'Why not?' she demanded. 'It was the right thing to do. They're new to the dale and we are their neighbours. It was our place to call first.' 'Yes,' Susan acknowledged, looking out of the window. 'I suppose it was the right thing for you, Lena.' In the ensuing silence Lena rang for their tea, and when it was wheeled in on the table-trolley Susan saw that Lena had brought out her mother's silver. She could not remember having seen it used at Peverils for years, and suddenly she knew that Lena had been expecting the Courages. She had been waiting for their, return call and was chagrined because today had brought another disappointment. Poor Lena! 'All this is lovely!' she said in an attempt to make amends as she accepted a delicate china cup and wafer-thin sandwich from the

gloomy custodian of Peverils. 'It makes Windyridge feel more remote than ever, Lena. Somehow, this sort of thing seems out of place up there on the top of the moor.' 'Which means that you won't visit the Courages or have them to Windyridge?' Lena asked with scarcely concealed relief. 'Perhaps I'd feel that way about it, too, if Fourstones had once been my home.' Susan put down her cup, stretching her hands towards the fire. The late August day felt suddenly chilly. 'I couldn't pretend to make them welcome,' she said stiltedly, 'and I couldn't go to Fourstones—not ever!' 'I wouldn't say they were typical Australians,' Lena offered after a considerable pause. 'Not in the way one would imagine. Beth, the daughter, is a nonentity, wearing her heart out for some American she met back home.' 'And the mother?' Susan asked involuntarily. Lena raised her head in the manner of an animal scenting danger. 'Stiffish,' she said. 'Guarding her son like the proverbial tigress!' There was something about the remark which immediately challenged Susan's belief, and she saw Lena irresistibly attracted to Graham Courage and afraid of his mother's influence. There was something infinitely pitiful in the thought of Lena in love with this man, something discordant which deepened the growing chasm between them, yet Susan instantly dismissed the idea that it might matter to her whom Graham Courage chose for a wife. But suddenly she wanted to get away from Lena, away from the other girl's thinly-veiled desire to impress the Courages and secure them

for her friends, to get away from Peverils, too, before Roger came. So much had changed, and it seemed that much had yet to change. Lena rose, walking with her to the door. 'Shall I give Roger any message?' she asked eagerly. Susan, pausing in the sunny doorway, frowned. 'Why should you?' she said. 'There's nothing special I want to say.' 'I thought there might be,' Lena countered. 'He makes no secret about his affection for you, Susan.' Susan felt irritated. Lena appeared to be throwing her brother very deliberately or very foolishly at her head. There had been an amazing change in Lena in the last few weeks. 'Roger was always like that,' she tried to say lightly. 'Remember how he used to tease us when we were at school?' 'But this is different,' Lena pointed out. 'None of us are schoolchildren any more.' Susan laughed, but it sounded hollow. 'You'll come up to Windyridge, won't you?' she suggested, changing the subject. 'I don't know when I shall be down again. Dad's lonely these days, and he's inclined to worry about Paul.' 'Haven't you heard from Paul yet?' Lena asked, her face clearing a little. 'Maybe he's waiting to come back with the laurel wreath!' Susan's grey eyes darkened.

'I wish I could believe that,' she said. 'I wish I could really believe he was doing well, but weeks are going past and still we don't hear anything. I try to pretend that there's nothing amiss about his not writing, but soon it will all have to come out into the open. We'll have to discuss it. I think Dad knows now that I'm not really happy about Paul's continuing silence, that I'm worrying about him just as much as he does.' 'I don't suppose there's very much you can do,' Lena said awkwardly. 'You have written to him, I suppose?' 'Every week, and still our letters remain unanswered.' Susan retrieved Taffy's lead and went down the four stone steps to the drive. 'We'll hear one day, of course, but I wish it could be soon. I can't bear to see that expectant look in Dad's eyes every time the postman comes over the hill—and then the disappointment that he always tries to hide.' 'Paul should write I' Lena said indignantly. 'He should never have gone away in the first place. I don't know what came over him.' 'He wanted a chance to express himself,' Susan answered grimly. 'We all feel like that, I suppose, in our different ways.' She called to the dog and went swiftly down the drive, climbing on to the moor over a rough stile in the dry stone dyke. The afternoon had proved a failure for some reason, and Lena had been remote and changed out of all recognition, vitalised, it seemed, by her thoughts of Graham Courage. The stranger in their midst! She walked with her head down, bending to the steep path up the face of the hill, and then, suddenly, she looked up and saw the man she had been thinking about coming towards her across the

heather. In that moment she recognised what Lena saw in him. Tall, splendid and confident in his riding clothes, he looked a figure of consequence, to whom other men might give their respect automatically. Instantly she discarded the thought, as if she had allowed herself to be blinded by the fierce rays of an aggressive sun for a moment of inner weakness, but there was no way of avoiding their inevitable meeting. He had evidently seen her coming up the hill on his way down from Windyridge. 'I wondered if I should meet you,' he said. 'I was up at Crofts and I called in for a chat with your father afterwards.' There was no mistaking the admiration in his tone. 'What a grand personality he is!' he went on. 'My own father was like that. Nothing really daunted him, and even at the end, when he must have been pretty sure that he would never see them carried out, he went on quickly making his plans for my mother's happiness.' Susan turned her eyes away from his gently probing gaze, feeling at a disadvantage with him for the first time. He had apparently forgotten their previous passage of arms, although perhaps he had only forgotten their previous meeting! 'It's a pity your father has to bury all that talent of his up there,' he went on, reverting to the subject of her father's pictures with quiet deliberation. 'It hardly seems fair to him, or to the world of art in general. They ought to have their chance at a private showing.' How well Susan knew it, and how powerless she felt to do anything constructive about it!

'I think I know all about that, Mr Courage,' she said frigidly, 'but there are limits to what we can do.' He hesitated. 'If one could help—in a cause like that,' he began tentatively, but instantly she stiffened. 'Forget it!' he said immediately. 'I'm far too new an acquaintance to make the offer, I agree. Someone told me the other day that one has to live in a place like Colourdale for close on forty years before the natives even begin to accept one, but art's different. It's—universal. I don't consider your father's work belongs to Colourdale, or even to himself, for that matter. A talent like his belongs to the world.' Stung by his open criticism of the dale she loved and only too painfully conscious of her inability to help her father to the dream of a lifetime, Susan faced him squarely. 'Of course, Colourdale waits to judge from experience, Mr Courage,' she said. 'North-country people are not effusive, but they have their sterling qualities, for all that. Maybe because of it.' Her heightened colour and the spark of anger in her eyes made her look oddly defiant as she stood there with the wind in her hair, the fitful sunshine in it, and the man who watched her smiled crookedly at a passing thought. His hand tightened, as if he held a rein, and then he said easily: 'I'm blessed with unlimited patience in some things. I can wait. Somehow, I think it will be worth it. Unfortunately, though,' he added, his face sobering, 'art can't wait. The message in your father's work is for now.'

The faint smile had flicked Susan on the raw and his continuing reference to the paintings only served to add to her own feeling of frustration. 'A knowledge of art comes oddly out of the Australian bush,' she said coldly. 'Is there anything you don't know about, Mr Courage? Sheep, wool, pictures and farming on a lavish scale! You appear to be the proud possessor of all the answers.' Her eyes did not waver, the rebellious light in them turning them to a clear, translucent grey. She saw that there was anger in his face now, for the first time, and his jaw was tensed. 'Look, lady,' he said, and she had never heard his accent quite so strong, 'Australia's not all bush!' Suddenly the anger melted into amusement. 'But perhaps you wouldn't know that,' he added evenly. Susan stepped back involuntarily. Why did he always seem to win? Why did the last word invariably go to him? She could see Roger Hoyland riding up towards them from the direction of Peverils, and the thought that she hadn't managed to escape his homecoming, after all, struck her as fantastic. Why should she wish to avoid Roger when he had been away for so long? He must have changed into his riding clothes, and come straight up the hill to Windyridge without even waiting to see his father. The colour stained her cheeks at the thought of Roger's persistent wooing, and her companion lifted his head and glanced quizzically in the newcomer's direction. Automatically the smile left his lips. 'What does young Hoyland do apart from riding a horse badly?' he asked critically.

'He behaves like a gentleman!' Susan flashed, but the retort only appeared to amuse him. 'I have a lot to learn,' he admitted, taking out his pipe to light it with slow deliberation as the other man approached. 'Hullo, Susan!' Roger greeted her resentfully. 'I had no idea you would be entertaining a visitor. When I got in half an hour ago, Lena told me you'd just left Peverils, so I thought I'd get the smell of petrol out of my lungs and ride up to see you.' Roger got down and flung his rein over the gatepost. He had not offered Graham Courage any direct greeting, but neither could he completely ignore him. 'I hear you're in the market for Crofts,' he remarked. 'Are we to expect an amazing new breed of sheep up here as soon as you get dug in?' he asked maliciously. Graham took a second or two to consider him from his now superior height. 'No,' he said slowly, 'I've no intention of trying to change what I've found here. At least, not with the sheep.' His eyes flicked over Susan as her father came hobbling towards them from the direction of the house. He had already been speaking to Graham Courage, but it was to the Australian that his eyes turned first in unfeigned admiration. Roger claimed his interest almost brusquely. 'You'll miss your neighbour at Crofts when he goes, Mr Danely,' he suggested. 'Bill Marley's been there a long time, but I suppose a farm that size does get too much for a man in his seventies. Best to get out before he wears himself out, eh?'

He offered the old man a cigarette, and Graham turned to Susan. "I know I'm repeating myself,' he said, 'but won't you change your mind and come to Fourstones to meet my mother? It's asking a lot, I agree,' he added, seeing her compressed lips and the drawn line of her fine brows, 'but we'll make it as easy as we can for you. You're the sort of person who could help Beth—my sister. She left Australia out of a sense of duty to my mother, I guess. She was keen on a fellow we met on a fishing trip out to the Barrier, but nothing came of it. He let her down pretty badly when he went back home to the States. She knows how rotten he was, but that doesn't make it any easier.' He looked at her keenly, willing her to accept. 'You'll come?' Susan managed to avoid his eyes. 'Your sister has met the Hoylands,' she said. 'Lena is very little older than she is, I believe.' 'I'm not asking Lena Hoyland,' he said. 'I'm asking you.' 'And I can give you no definite promise.' She forced herself to face him as Roger and her father began to walk towards the house. 'I have work to do—helping my father with the sheep and running the house.' 'Is it a full-time job?' he demanded bluntly. 'You see, I'm repeating myself again,' he smiled. 'I still haven't found anyone who knows the office routine at the mill as well as you do.' 'I could never work at Danely's—just as I could never come to Fourstones!' Susan cried. 'I've told you I'm needed here.' 'Not all the time,' he returned with a conviction which made her wonder if he had already discussed the proposition with her father.

'You're not the type who likes to sit idly by,' he added with still more assurance. 'You're far too like your father for that, and he wouldn't object to your coming to the mill.' Susan's chin lifted. 'You seem to know a great deal about us, Mr Courage,' she observed icily. 'You've managed to work out a great many things in a very short space of time.' 'I know a man of quiet conviction when I see one,' he answered. 'Just as I can spot the fighter, and the rat! We have 'em all, you know, even in Australia! It takes all kinds to make a world, I guess; even a brash new world like my own!' He was never going to allow her to forget that, but she would not apologise. He had goaded her to the things she had said, and if he chose to remember her childishness it was just one more point on which they would never see eye to eye. She turned away from the gate as he knocked out the contents of his pipe on the top bar. 'Think over that visit to Fourstones, won't you?' he said. 'And think over what I've said about your father's pictures. They ought to have a showing. I know genius when I see it, in spite of my backwoods upbringing, and it would be an honour to help, if only with the arrangements.' Susan set her teeth. Once and for all, he must understand that she would not accept this—charity under any circumstances, although all he had just said was an echo of the ambition in her own heart.

'Unfortunately, arranging shows in the art world takes time and money,' she said stiffly. 'And we have very little money at the moment. When I can afford to give my father's pictures a showing, I shall be able to make the arrangements, too.' He put his pipe away and unhitched his horse from the bar gatepost. 'Danely's might even be the answer to that,' he suggested slowly, but she saw that she could rouse anger in him now like a swift spark, although he was capable of controlling it, as she was not. Sometimes, too, he could even laugh at her. 'All right, Susan,' he added, using her name deliberately, 'I think I've got the idea. It's no quarter, isn't it? You're determined to hate me, but I don't think you'll be able to carry it to the rest of the family. My mother is your kind, and so is Beth. You're bound to meet, and you're bound to like each other. There's nothing so sure as that. Don't hold Danely's against them, if you must go on holding it against me. Beth, at least, never wanted to come here.' He vaulted lightly into the saddle, turning his horse's head towards Fourstones, and Susan watched him go with a strangely empty feeling in her heart. He had made her seem small and lacking in charity, but she still could not forget that a whim of fate had let him do for Danely's what her family had failed to do. 'I heard Courage asking you to meet his mother and sister,' Roger said as they watched her father penning the sheep he had brought down from the hill to be dipped. 'He appears to think that we owe them some sort of semi-regal welcome to the dale, but I think he should have drawn the line at asking you to go to Fourstones. After all, it was your home at one time.'

Susan stood quite still, feeling incapable of answering him for a moment, and then she said slowly: 'I've no intention of going to Fourstones. I've told Graham Courage that, but there's no reason why he shouldn't want the dale's friendship for his family. They— they seem to be greatly attached to one another, but that,' she added with emphasis, 'hardly concerns me.' Roger put his arm about her shoulder, vastly relieved. 'All right. Sue!' he smiled. 'Don't take it too much to heart, though. I know Courage has got under your skin, but you needn't live to hate him! What I did come up to say was that there are some jolly good shows running in Manchester just now—one of them 'doing its pre-London run. Why not let me take you over one evening? Tomorrow, if you like. There's no more Big Business to stand in our way! Come to think of it,' he added ruefully, 'what there was— what I could get—wasn't so big, either.' The admission, if he had already made it to his father, would not exactly have pleased Ben Hoyland, and Susan could imagine him feeling—and saying—that he would have done better to have gone to Manchester himself but she could not bring herself to give Roger her promise to visit the scene of his recent failure. She did not want to go away from the dale, yet she was strangely restive while she stayed in it. When Roger had gone, telling her that he refused to accept such a decision, she walked across the moor in search of comfort. She had found it so easily up here in the past, with the freedom of the wind about her and the wide expanse of rolling hills at her feet, but now peace and contentment seemed to be eluding her. Much of what Graham Courage had said came back to mock her, and she found it

impossible to banish the thought of him. He had everything he wanted, and life was all satisfaction for him. She found herself looking up at Crofts, trying to feel resentful, but suddenly it became difficult when she remembered his mother and the fact that he had brought her back to England at the decided sacrifice of his own life in Australia. That was one disappointment, but he was about to master it by possessing Crofts, and one day much of the dale might belong to him. He was as ruthless about that as Ben Hoyland, she thought. They were both men of steel, yet as utterly removed from one another in nature as it was possible to be. These two would come up against each other one day and she could not help wondering who would win. Although she couldn't possibly have any interest in the decision, something in her heart told her that it mustn't be Ben Hoyland. Which was nonsense, of course, if she was going to marry Roger. But was she going to marry Roger? A month ago she might have said that she would, in time, but now there was indecision in her heart. There was her father and this business about Paul, too. She could not leave Windyridge until all that was sorted out, and a good deal more besides. She flung herself down on the heather, plucking restlessly at the coarse tufts as she lay on her back staring up at the high clouds sailing above her head. At one time it would have been enough just to come out here and reason with herself and she could have returned home contented, but today a host of unanswerable things crowded in her heart, some of them planted there quite deliberately by Graham Courage. What was she going to do about her father's paintings, for instance? What could she do about them? He had never put his desire to have them shown into so many words, never given her

cause to think of him as in any way discontented with his lot, but she knew that the wish was there, the secret longing of the true artist to have his work acknowledged. It had stood hesitant in his eyes on more than one occasion recently, and behind it she had glimpsed some of the sacrifice which all creative art demands. She recognised the loneliness and the frustration and the impelling ambition, the eager reaching after greater things, the conviction that art was all. Was that what Paul had felt when he had left Danely's? He had been young and impressionable in those days and her father, rightly or wrongly, had given him his head. Why was it, then, that she had so little faith in Paul's art, so deep a conviction that he had made a mistake? Even when he had come home from London during the first months he had been useless and discontented, not knowing what he really wanted, and she had sensed that, too, because she had known loneliness and discontentment in the past. The only difference was that she had also known content. She had stood at the edge of a field, hearing the wind in the wheat, listening to it stirring among the heavy ears, and she had known herself happy and willing to live her life out here in this quiet place until, of a sudden, disruption had come. There was a stranger in their midst and her world had changed. All that she had wanted to do for Danely's was undone. There would never be a Danely at the mill again, although the old name might linger. Graham Courage would keep that on, not from any sentimental impulse, but because Danely's had once stood for perfection in the trade. He would bring back all the old glory to the mill, and she would have no part in it. If something whispered that he had already offered her a part, she took no notice. He had also offered to help her father, but that had been the greatest presumption. How long would it take her, she

wondered, to earn enough to give the pictures a showing? And where could she earn it, apart from Danely's? She could not leave the dale to find work elsewhere, leaving her father to fend for himself, yet she told herself that she would rather die than work at the mill beside Graham Courage, just as she would never go to Fourstones of her own free will. Her hands clenched by her side, she stared up at the blue, impassive sky. 'If only I knew!' she cried. 'If only I knew what to do!' It was another hour before she made her way back to the farm and she found her father seated in his accustomed chair beside the fire, his stick between his knees, his head resting on his folded hands in which he gripped a letter that had been read and re-read many times, and Susan did not need to see it to know that it was her brother's last letter home. She stood there in the doorway, not knowing what to say or do, in the face of an old man's silent grief more devastating to bear than any spoken word, and then she turned back into the kitchen with a choked sob in her throat. I've got to do something, she thought. I've got to do something to bring Paul back!

CHAPTER FOUR IT did not seem that Lena had any intention of visiting Windyridge in the near future, so, when the sheep were dipped and life had returned more or less to normal, Susan went to Peverils again. She went in search of Lena with a sensation of pity in her heart, feeling that there were a good many things in life which her friend had missed. The girl who came to meet her in Peverils' great hall hardly seemed an object for anyone's pity, however. Lena was dressed as Susan had never seen her before, in a gaily fashionable, fullskirted dress which looked as if it had come straight from one of the best houses in Manchester that very afternoon. 'Oh, Susan 1 how nice to see you again,' she said. 'You're just in time for tea.' Susan glanced down at the laden trolley, at the gleaming silver and fine china, and hung back. 'If you have visitors,' she said, 'I'll come some other time.' 'But why should you?' They had reached the half-open door of the drawing-room. 'You don't run away as a rule,' Lena said. As a rule there were very few visitors when Susan came to Peverils, and it seemed that Lena had raised her voice just that fraction which would carry it into the room beyond. There was evidently someone there whom she wished to impress. 'Mrs Courage and her daughter have come down from Fourstones to return my call.'

There could be no escape for Susan now. Lena was ushering her into the flower-filled room. The scent of roses was everywhere, yet Susan did not seem to notice it. Her whole attention was centred on the elderly woman sitting with her back to the long french windows leading on to the terrace. It was as if she could not take her eyes from that tall, commanding figure which reminded her instantly of Graham Courage. 'May I introduce my friend Susan Danely?' Lena smiled. 'Susan, this is Mrs Courage and her daughter Beth.' Susan turned her eyes from Mrs Courage to acknowledge her daughter, but she hadn't really seen Beth. The older woman was by far the more attractive of the two, a woman to whom every eye in a room would instinctively turn when she entered it. She was a wonderful-looking old woman, holding herself superbly erect, with a mass of white hair coiled regally on top of her shapely head and wide, fearless blue eyes which looked straight at the world out of a lined and sunburned face. Her hands were beautiful, long and slim and shapely, but Susan guessed that they were working hands, too. Mrs Courage's mouth had a sweet though determined fold to the lips which was strangely reminiscent of her son's, and eyes searched Susan's quite honestly. 'How are you, my dear?' Hester Courage said, her voice as rich and deep as Susan had expected. 'My son has told me all about you and your father, painting his wonderful pictures up there on the moor. What an amazing man he must be, coping with the essentials of life and managing to be an artist, too!' 'He hasn't a great deal of choice,' Susan said, wondering just how much this woman's son had told her. 'Life on the moor is hard, but we are both fond of it. I'm doubtful if my father would willingly change it for—any other.'

There was no tension in the atmosphere, such as she had expected, no suggestion that this first meeting of theirs might be anything other than friendly. 'Gray says you have a corgi!' Beth exclaimed, coming to sit on the arm of her mother's chair. 'I'd love one. They're so greatly admired in our part of Australia.' The young, unformed voice had faltered a little over the last word and the brown eyes, which had brightened at the thought of possessing a dog, were suddenly overshadowed. Susan saw Beth Courage press her slim hands together in an agony of remembering as she strove to drive back humiliating tears and wondered if someone had once promised Beth that corgi in Australia, someone who had since gone back on his words in so many things. Unlike her mother, Beth Courage was small and raven- haired, her heart-shaped face dominated by deeply sensitive brown eyes and a mouth which looked as if it had been made to turn up impishly at the corners. She was barely five feet tall, and her petite figure was exquisitely proportioned, but there was an overlying sadness of expression which dimmed her beauty and caused her to droop a little. From time to time she endeavoured to enter into the conversation with an animation which might have been expected of her, but Susan sensed an inner heartache pulling her thoughts away over thirteen thousand miles. They spoke about the dale, about conditions in the winter months when they would be virtually snowed in for days, and Beth smiled and looked interested because she had never seen snow before. 'If you discount a few sooty flakes which fell in Melbourne a few years ago!' she said.

'It can be heavy here, and inconvenient,' Susan explained, 'but it can also be fun! If it lies for any length of time, you could learn to ski up on the hillsides, but perhaps,' she added, remembering that they were not inhibited by any lack of money, 'you'll go to France or Switzerland, where the snow can be guaranteed throughout a whole season.' 'I think I'd like that,' Beth said, but her tone suggested that the winter was so far away that she dared not think about it and each day a burden of crowding memories stretching between. Lena poured their tea, smiling at all that was said, but contributing little to the conversation unless she was directly addressed by Mrs Courage, a habit which had grown upon her from long years of submission and could not be entirely broken in a day. Susan found herself wondering, suddenly, why Lena had lied to her so deliberately about the Courages. She had tried to present both Mrs Courage and Beth in a poor light, whether to placate her or to add to her determination not to meet the newcomers, Susan could not guess, but, whatever the reason, her words had only succeeded in making the truth more surprising. Graham Courage had a charming mother and an equally attractive sister when Beth's surface shyness was pierced. She found herself watching Beth as Lena fussed about refilling their cups, and then she saw Lena glance beyond her guests into the garden where a man's tall figure had appeared at the foot of the terrace steps. 'It's—your son.' Lena passed Mrs Courage on her way to the window, her eyes alight and her whole face suddenly animated. 'How nice of him to come! I'll bring him in this way and ring for some fresh tea.'

Susan felt herself stiffen. What a fool Lena was, falling over herself like this to welcome Graham Courage when he had so obviously come to take his mother and sister home, she tried to reason coldly, yet she knew a wild desire to rise and run before Lena's unexpected visitor reached the room. It would have been sheer, precipitous flight, but it would have shown him that she meant to stick to her guns. As their eyes met across the room she knew that he had got what he wanted once more. She and his mother had met in spite of her refusal to visit Fourstones, and that was all he had asked. 'I'm glad about this,' he said, turning to her when he had greeted Lena. 'I had no idea Lena was going to arrange your meeting.' Let him think it had been arranged, Susan thought in sudden confusion, and let Lena bask foolishly in his approval. It really made little difference either way. 'I was coming along the dale,' he explained to his mother, 'so I thought I would call round and pick you up.' He accepted his cup from Lena, drinking the tea as he gazed about the room which might have sheltered his boyhood, and Susan tried to guess what he might be thinking. She could not surprise bitterness in his face, but neither could she detect the complete detachment which she had found in his mother's attitude to Peverils. Once more he was an enigma when she sought to understand him. 'We're playing tennis on Saturday,' Lena said, standing before him like an eager schoolgirl. 'Will you come down for a game and bring Beth?'

It was clear that his acceptance of the invitation was all that really mattered, and Susan felt that she could shake Lena. 'It rather makes me odd man out, doesn't it?' he said glancing in Susan's direction. 'You would be a foursome if Beth came alone.' Lena brushed his objection hastily aside. 'It doesn't matter how many we are,' she declared. 'Besides,' she added. 'Susan may not come.' 'That would be a pity,' he said. 'I should hate to spoil Susan's day.' 'One day you must all come to Fourstones,' Mrs Courage said, rising to take her departure. 'I like to have plenty of young people about me, and we'll have to make our own enjoyment in the winter months up here, as we did in Queensland.' Susan moved towards the door, but Graham had forestalled her. 'Let me give you a lift,' he offered. 'It won't be much out of our way to set you down at Windyridge.' 'There's no need,' she said, conscious of the stiffness of her bald refusal. 'I go up across the moor. It's much the quicker way, and I'm ready for the walk.' She said goodbye, shaking hands with his mother and sister, but managing to avoid the physical contact as she passed him in the doorway. Lena followed her out. 'You needn't have been rude, Sue,' she said, 'over a little thing like a lift home.'

In spite of the reprimand, there had been relief in her voice and a kind of gloating elation that repelled Susan as she turned sharply away. Almost running down the drive in case the black Jaguar with the Courages in it would catch up with her, she felt the scalding tears well in her eyes, tears of loneliness and depression, called up from some sensitive inner source, tears for something she did not understand, a new and aching intensity of longing which would not be denied. In an attempt at defence she forced rebellion back into her heart. However nice the Courage women were, however friendly they sought to become, she could not—would not let herself forget that they were the strangers who now possessed Danely's! The roots of her bitterness had gone deep, and they were to strike strange, wan flowers before many days had passed. It was less than a week later that she-was walking towards Crofts when she saw Beth Courage riding along the green ridge ahead of her, the droop of her slim young shoulders and her loose grip on the rein testifying to her preoccupation with matters far removed from her present surroundings and the unknown way she was going. Susan could see that she was riding straight for the unseen brink of an unused quarry which was the one place on the moors which she should have been warned against, and a stab of misgiving shot through her. She lifted her cupped hands to her lips to shout a warning and then she hesitated. Why should she concern herself with Beth Courage? Let her take care of herself! She turned her eyes away, and when she looked again the cry she would have uttered was frozen on her lips. Beth's mount had

reared up at something in its track and horse and rider were careering across the hard ground towards the rim of the hidden pit. For one terrible moment Susan stood rigid where she was, and then she was running, hurtling over the rough ground to intercept the frenzied animal as he approached the quarry, with Beth clinging desperately low over his neck. She clambered the last few yards between whins and entangled blackberry bushes, tearing her skirt and hands without thought. The horse was coming towards her now, his ears hack and flecks of foam white beneath the bit, which he had caught between his teeth as Beth pulled savagely at the rein in a final effort to control him. She's game, Susan thought. Terribly game! And then her own hands were reaching up and she was springing at the animal's head, pulling it down, throwing all her weight into the effort in these last few seconds before they reached the quarry. The impetus of the wild rush seemed to slacken, but it was not halted. She felt herself being dragged in a whirl of dust and lashing hooves over the edge, but she knew that Beth had jumped clear at the critical moment. Leaving the rein, she let herself go, falling over and over on the rough slope, with stones and loosened earth cascading after her in a wild flurry until she lay wedged at the base of a stunted ash on a narrow ledge half-way down the quarry's side. She lay for a moment getting her breath, and then she rolled over and tried to crawl back to the top. Unnerved and shaken, she found it difficult to find a handhold. 'Beth!' she called, scarcely able to trust her own voice. 'Beth!' 'I'm here!'

The voice came from a patch of bracken above her and she closed her eyes in instant relief. She had been let off lightly. All her life she might have found herself face to face with that split second's indecision when she had failed to warn the other girl of her danger. She reached the top, scrambling to her feet to find that her legs could scarcely support her, and when she reached the clump of bracken where Beth lay she could not speak for a moment. Beth was sitting in a crouching position, holding her ankle, feeling it tenderly, and she looked up with a rueful smile when Susan appeared. 'Looks as if I've twisted it,' she said, trying to struggle to her feet. 'It might have been much worse, though—but for you, Susan! How in the world did you manage to stop that horse?' 'Don't ask me!' Susan tried to smile, but her lips were stiff. 'I don't suppose I've really stopped him yet. After that tumble he took he's probably careering out at the foot of the quarry and off home across the fields. We'll have to make sure, though,' she added, her face sobering. 'There's a chance that he may have hurt himself.' She looked at Beth. 'How about the foot? Do you think you can use it, or shall I go for help?' 'I don't think we'll need to call out a rescue party,' Beth said, with an effort to hide the fact that she was in considerable pain. 'I might just be able to get home if you would help me.' Susan looked about her. 'I'll have to try to find your horse,' she Said.

'I wouldn't ride him again for a thousand pounds, if that's what you mean!' Beth declared. 'From now on I walk, or ride a bicycle. At least that wouldn't shy at a startled rabbit!' 'A bicycle would restrict you to the roads,' Susan pointed out. 'Yes, it's really wrong of me to blame Maru when the fault was very much my own,' Beth agreed, her eyes darkening. 'I—wasn't thinking about where I was going. My thoughts were miles away.' In Australia, Susan suspected, with regret haunting them and turning a knife in your heart! 'Will you wait here until I have a look along the quarry for Maru?' she asked. 'If he's anywhere about I might be able to catch him and bring him back.' The horse, however, had disappeared. There was no sign of him in the quarry itself, but when she had climbed back to the moor again she caught a fleeting glimpse of a black shape streaking across the valley towards Fourstones. Maru had decided to find his own way home. Beth was still standing beside the gorse bushes, trying to look as if the foot wasn't paining her at all. 'Maru's gone,' Susan told her. 'He should be at Fourstones any minute now!' 'Oh no!' Beth's expression was stricken. 'If Mummy sees him, or old Travener carries the news up to the house, she'll be in a dreadful state. Susan,' she begged, 'help me to get back to Fourstones by the quickest possible way!'

Susan looked up at Windyridge and across the moor to the house beneath the mill. If anything, Fourstones was the nearer of the two, and she had sworn that she would never go to Fourstones! 'I'm afraid I'm going to need your help,' Beth said apologetically. 'If I could hold on to your arm, Susan, I needn't put quite so much weight on my foot.' Susan put an arm about her in silence. It was more than a mile to Fourstones, but the chances were that they might pass a car on the road and be given a lift to the house. The other way, the way to Windyridge, was steep and rough, and there was no telephone at the end of it. If Mrs Courage was to be spared unnecessary anxiety, the road to Fourstones was the only way. Beth's riding boot was keeping the injured ankle from swelling too badly and they could make the journey in easy stages. Beth was most worried about her mother, about the arrival of the riderless horse at the stables, but she took consolation from the fact that Susan thought they would not be very far behind it. 'We can only hope that Travener keeps his head and goes to Gray first,' Beth said. 'Gray never gets in a panic. I used to wonder if he ever felt emotion of any kind,' she ran on with an affectionate smile at the thought of her brother, 'but now I realize that he can hide it far more effectively than anyone I know.' 'Perhaps he's hardened,' Susan said briefly. 'Oh, no!' Beth denied the suggestion immediately. 'You could never call Gray hard. He's the kindest person in the world, especially when things go wrong. If it hadn't been for Gray, I should never have pulled out of—the trouble I had before we left Australia. He made me see that life just doesn't end because you think your heart is breaking, that however desperately you may

want to quit there's always a reason why you should go on. Gray loves a fighter, you see. He would have been terribly disappointed in me if I'd let him down.' Susan told herself that she did not want to hear about Graham Courage, yet she found herself asking: 'Do you think he'll be completely content here in Colour- dale? Will it make up to him for all he left behind in Australia?' Beth looked at her in some surprise. 'Yes,' she said as if she had just thought about it for the first time, 'he did give up rather a lot, but he won't grudge it. My father promised to bring Mother back to England, and Gray fulfilled that promise. That's all there is to it. He'll count it well worth while. I'm quite sure about that.' 'You're—very fond of him,' Susan said. Beth smiled. 'Wouldn't you be? If he was your brother, I mean!' she added, laughing. Susan did not answer. She could find nothing to say, because the thought of her own brother was forever in her mind. She would not admit, however, that she was disappointed in him. They rested for a bit before they crossed the main road, sitting on the dry stone dyke with the last of the sun in their faces and the grasshoppers chirping in the ditch at their feet. The whole dale seemed hushed, waiting, and Beth looked down across the fields with a strangely preoccupied expression in her brown eyes.

' "Fresh woods and pastures new"!' she mused. 'I wonder if they'll make a difference—in time.' 'To the past?' Susan's eyes were on the distant hills. 'How can anyone say, except to repeat the old cliché that time is the great healer?' 'Susan,' Beth asked slowly, 'have you ever been in love?' 'No!' Susan's cheeks were stained scarlet. 'I've lived all my life here -' Beth looked at her, laughing a little. 'That needn't make any difference, and I could almost think you are in love!' she said. 'But if you deny it, I must believe you!' There was a short, tense silence before Susan jumped down from the wall. 'Don't you think we'd better go?' she said. They were nearing the gates of Fourstones when his car pulled up behind them and Graham Courage got out. 'What have you been getting up to now?' he asked, coming round to his sister's side and searching her eyes for the truth. 'I thought you went out on Maru?' 'I did,' Beth sighed ruefully. 'But now I'm beginning to think that all you taught me on the comparatively flat plains of Romaro doesn't apply in this part of the world!' Graham glanced swiftly at Susan.

'You were out together?' 'Oh, no, Susan was the rescue party,' Beth told him. 'Seriously, though, she did save me from a nasty accident and I'm more than grateful,' she added. Graham looked from one to the other. 'You're a pretty disreputable pair,' he informed them, 'judging by how you look! Perhaps one of you might be able to tell me just what did happen, but in the meantime we'd better all get into the car.' Susan drew back. 'Beth will be all right now,' she said. 'I think she's sprained her ankle, but you'll be able to tell that better when you get her boot off. She has one or two cuts and bruises, too, but I don't think there's any serious damage.' 'How about you?' he demanded briskly. 'You look as if you've taken a toss, too.' She put a hand up to her dishevelled hair. 'I'm all right,' she said defensively. 'A few superficial scratches, that's all.' Beth was still clinging to Susan's arm, and it was obvious that her ankle was paining her more than she would admit. Graham stooped, as if she had been a child, and picked her up, carrying her the short distance back to the car, and when he had settled her in comparative comfort, he turned to Susan.

'It looks as if we owe you our thanks,' he said. 'My mother will be able to do that much better than I can.' He turned to the car, taking it for granted that she would complete the journey to Fourstones with his sister, but Susan said quickly: 'There's no need for me to come any farther. It was only because Beth couldn't walk that I—that I -' 'That you broke your vow never to come?' he finished for her. 'All the same, Susan, I think it's imperative now. Apart from our desire to thank you, you're not in any state to walk back to Windyridge alone.' He was looking down at her torn hands and the deep cut across her forehead where she had struck the tree. It had bled, profusely, but she had thought that she had wiped most of it off with her handkerchief. 'Really,' she said doggedly, 'I'd rather go.' 'And I refuse to let you go,' he told her with equal determination. 'We're blocking the road, Susan. Must I carry you to the car, as I did Beth?' Hot protest rose to her lips, but she. saw that he meant what he said. He had no intention of letting her go all the way back to Windyridge in her present state. 'Do come, Susan,' Beth urged faintly from the car. 'I—I think I'm beginning to feel rather sick.' Susan looked down at her torn skirt and gave way. Her head was beginning to throb and the bramble thorns in her hand were

stinging painfully. Graham opened the car door and helped her into the front seat. He did not ask about the accident, driving swiftly up the winding drive till they came to the front door. Susan's heart turned over with a sick little jolt of remembering. How often she had come home like this on a summer's afternoon with the pale gold sunshine striking across the hills and falling on the warm grey stone of the old house, giving it a peculiar pinkish cast, like firelight in a quiet room. Nothing had changed. The old knocker with the gargoyle's head remained on the door, and the two stunted conifers still flanked it on either side. It did not seem that they had even grown an inch since she had left there. Graham got out to help his sister while she sat on in a silence heavy with memories, staring before her through the wind-screen at the lovely garden where she had played as a child. 'You'll let my mother give you some tea?' Graham was beside her, opening the car door on her side and looking at her kindly, conscious of all she was feeling, she supposed, yet able to put a perfectly natural face on the occasion because her own sudden nervousness demanded it. 'She'll be so glad you've come, Susan.' For one desperate moment Susan felt that she must defy his sudden kindness and remain where she was, but in the next she had got out of the car and was walking towards the house with her chin raised just a fraction of an inch. Graham walked beside her into the hall, supporting the limping Beth, and Susan found herself surrounded by familiar things, by old oak settles and gleaming brass and a log fire burning in the wide grate.

'I'll wait here,' she said, sinking into a chair by the fire, and Graham led his sister away. In memory Susan went with them into the comfortable sittingroom where her mother had always waited tea for them, but soon Mrs Courage was at her side. 'My dear,' she said, 'how brave of you to go after Beth like that! It might have been so much more serious if you hadn't acted so quickly, and it was a blessing that Gray met you both.' She drew Susan into the room, where Graham was kneeling by his sister's side, attending to the injured foot. As his sensitive fingers moved slowly over Beth's ankle she gasped involuntarily and the remaining colour fled from her cheeks. 'I think you would be better upstairs in your own room,' he said. 'We'll send you up a tray.' Before she could protest, he had picked Beth up and was carrying her towards the stairs. 'You'll come up later, Susan,' Beth called, looking back over his shoulders. 'I haven't really thanked you properly.' Susan glanced across at Mrs Courage. 'Please go up with her,' she said. 'I'll be—all right here.' Hester Courage thanked her with a warm smile. Susan stood drinking in the dear familiarity of that lovely room with its high, narrow windows framing the long vista of the garden and its deep, chintz-covered chairs placed invitingly round the fire. The furniture which the Courages had acquired since their arrival

in England was in such perfect harmony with the house that it was not easy at first to distinguish it from the pieces they had bought with Fourstones. Susan saw it all through a sudden mist of tears, the old homeplace, the heart of the house, where a family gathered inevitably at the ending of the day. It had been that in her mother's time, and it was so again. Hester Courage possessed all the homemaking qualities and the generosity to keep it that way. She was still standing in the centre of the room with her hands clasped tightly before her when Graham Courage came swiftly down the broad staircase and stood looking in at her from the hall. 'Is anyone looking after you?' he asked. She shook her head. 'I should go home. My father must be wondering what's happened.' She had put her injured hand behind her back almost defensively, but he drew it gently forward. 'We've got to see this first,' he said. 'It's worse than I thought. Can you come across to the gun-room till I get hot water and a germicide?' Obediently she followed him out of the room and across the hall. Her hand was hot and throbbing, as if a thousand thorns had pierced her flesh, and she felt slightly light-headed, so that the coolness of the dim, raftered hall was not unacceptable. He led her to the small cloakroom which had always been part of the old gunroom and she noticed that a variety of guns stood, oiled and ready, in their rests against the wall, much as they had done in the old days when her father and the boys had been keen shots on the hill.

Silently Graham Courage took down the first-aid box and poured disinfectant into an enamel basin, and she watched while he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, finding bandages and forceps in the cabinet above the sink. 'I've never been on the receiving end of all this before,' she commented, trying to smile. 'It was generally my role to play nurse when one of the boys came in with cuts and bruises. I'm not really hurt,' she added hastily as she saw his eyes go to her forehead. 'I shouldn't be taking up your time like this while—while -' Suddenly she was struggling with overwhelming nausea. The room seemed to be floating on two levels and tilting precariously, and she put her hand out to clutch at something steady and secure. Instantly two strong arms were about her and she heard Graham's voice close above her head. 'All right, Susan, let go! You'll feel better for it afterwards.' He lifted her as easily as he had lifted Beth, carrying her back across the hall. She could feel the hardness of his muscles under the light silk shirt he wore and the heavy beating of his heart from the exertion, and once she tried to struggle to free herself, but the effort was useless. The strong arms tightened a fraction and she was carried with the utmost deliberation to the low settee in the sitting- room where he had found her. She was still vaguely conscious when he laid her down, but all the resistance had gone out of her. She felt weak and ready to cry. He left her, but in a couple of seconds he was back with a golden liquid in a tall glass.

'Try to drink this,' he advised. 'It will do you good. I'll help you to sit up.' She felt his arm about her again, but this time she did not shrink away from its steadying hold. It seemed futile, trying to evade him. 'And now your hand,' he said firmly, when he had propped cushions behind her back. 'I'll be as gentle as I can.' Susan was amazed at how gentle he could be, especially as he must be thinking this the greatest nuisance when he wanted to be with his sister. There were several thorns still embedded in her flesh, but he extracted them with the minimum of pain, kneeling beside her and bathing the hand afterwards with all the skill which a woman might have brought to the task. Once or twice his dark head came between her and his bandaging and she saw how the hair grew, short and thick, above his temples with just a tendency to curl where he had combed it determinedly back from the high, wide brow. She thought that it would have curled riotously when he was a small boy, imagining Hester Courage's strong fingers grown tender as they ran through it in a caressing gesture of affection and pride. Disturbed by the thought, ashamed of it even, she drew back into the far corner of the settee until he had finished. 'Mr Courage,' she said breathlessly, 'would you mind very much if I went home right away? Your mother will understand,' she added hastily. 'My father must be growing anxious by now.' He got to his feet, looking down at her with a crooked smile.

'All right, Susan, I understand,' he said. 'But you'll let me run you back to Windyridge and explain everything to your father.' The words were more of a command than a question and she could not refuse him. 'If you must,' she said. 'It's only what would be expected of me,' he assured her dryly. At least they were on the old footing again, Susan thought, with any gratitude he might feel he owed her on Beth's account repaid by the kindness he had just shown her. His car Was still at the door and he helped her into it. 'Will you explain to your mother?' she asked. 'I'll do my best.'- He let in his clutch and drove away. 'She wants me to get the doctor for Beth just to check up on the ankle, so I go round that way.' He drove in a thoughtful silence until they reached the moor road. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'if I forced you to go to Fourstones against your will.' The remark was so utterly unexpected that she could not answer him, her habitual candour struggling with a dozen other emotions for mastery. 'I thought it would be—much worse than that,' she said truthfully. 'Going back, I mean.'

'Nothing ever is as bad as we expect,' he mused. 'I thought that leaving Queensland would be the end of any real happiness where I was concerned, the end of long days in the open with the wind in my face. I don't know what I expected of England, but it certainly wasn't this!' His level gaze took in the broad expanse of moor, and the quiet dale, and the green hills rising above it to a sky flecked with high white clouds, and the expression in his eyes said that it was good, that here he might find compensation for much that he had given up on the other side of the world. Almost to her own surprise, she found herself asking him about the mill. 'Have you managed to find a secretary yet?' she began tentatively. 'I—wondered if the job was still open?' He slowed the car as they came near Windyridge, glancing down obliquely at her flushed face. 'Let's have all our cards on the table, Susan,' he said. 'You want the job now, for a reason best known to yourself. Why not say so, fair and square?' 'Yes,' she said briefly, 'I want it. I want work and it's all I know about. I can't leave my father at Windyridge alone to find it elsewhere. I—need the money for the future.' Her explanation sounded stilted and evasive, but she could not tell him about her hope that one day she might be able to give her father's pictures the showing they deserved. Neither could she tell him about Paul, confessing her brother's behaviour to a stranger.

'And after that,' he guessed, 'Danely's will see you no more.' He stopped the car with an impatient jerk. 'It will have served its purpose. All right, Susan, just so long as we're honest with each other I can have no objection. I want you at the mill and you want the money. What could be fairer than that?' It was all wrong, Susan thought, but she could not try to explain something she scarcely understood herself. Besides, she had just seen the Hoyland shooting brake parked on the far side of the gate and knew that Roger must be somewhere about the house. It left her no opportunity of protesting at the construction Graham Courage had put on her desire for work, and he appeared to recognize the brake as swiftly as she had done. 'There seems to be the beginnings of a search-party afoot,' he remarked. 'I hope we haven't kept you too long at Fourstones.' 'I had no idea Roger was coming,' Susan began before she remembered that she was in no way obliged to account to him for her actions or for the visitors who came to Windyridge once in a while. She got down from the car and he swung his long legs out from behind the wheel, but she did not ask him into the house. Instead, she closed the white gate between them, much as she had done that first day when she had come upon him viewing her father's pictures, standing with her hands clasping the high top bar. 'Do I get the job, Mr Courage?' she demanded bluntly. 'Or have you someone else in mind for it?' She saw him smile with that sudden, baffling twist to his pleasant mouth which annoyed her because it told her nothing.

'Since I've had it firmly implanted in my mind that no one else in Colourdyke could do the work as well, why should I look round for a substitute?' he asked. 'The suggestion being that you were sure I would capitulate in the end?' Susan flashed. 'All right, you've won a point, Mr Courage! But it's not because I want to work for you that I'm taking this job!' She saw the smile about his mouth deepen and one dark eyebrow shot up whimsically as he digested what she had said. It wasn't exactly the conventional way to accept a job, Susan agreed, but Graham Courage maddened her at times. Nothing ever seemed to ruffle him or upset his calculated self-control. 'You leave me in absolutely no doubt about that,' he said, with a brief glance towards the house where Roger now stood by the open door. 'Pay my respects to your father,' he added warmly. 'Tell him I'll be in to see him one day soon and—thanks again, Susan, for all you did for Beth.' Strangely dissatisfied, Susan watched him drive away, remembering that he had been kind and considerate at Fourstones, even though he had forced her to go there against her will. 'I think you might have told your father where you were going when you went out with Courage,' Roger said, coming up behind her. 'He had no idea where you were when I got here.' The slight hint of possessiveness in his voice could not be mistaken, and Susan said briefly: 'My father doesn't expect me to account for my actions when I'm only going out on to the moor, but if you must know, Roger, Beth Courage had an accident and I took her home.'

'And Courage brought you back?' he guessed. 'All very nice, but I thought you said you didn't want anything to do with these people.' Flushed and angry, she turned to face him. 'I told you there was an accident,' she repeated. 'Beth Courage was thrown from her horse. You wouldn't have expected me to—walk away, would you?' 'No.' He studied her keenly while he took out and lit a cigarette. 'It does put Courage in your debt, though.' 'That has nothing to do with it! I don't want them to feel indebted to me for anything. It wasn't a serious accident.' He glanced down at her bandaged hand. 'It looks as if you came off none too lightly in the fray,' he remarked. 'Did Courage manage to play the doctor, too?' Susan put her hand behind her. 'I was stupid enough to catch on to some brambles,' she said. 'We're making a mountain out of a molehill, Roger, and I really must go in and make some tea.' 'I'm surprised you didn't ask Courage to share it with you,' he flung at her angrily. 'He looked as if he would have accepted like a shot!' 'He was going for the doctor and his tea will be waiting for him at Fourstones when he gets back!' 'So you went to the house?' He came a step nearer, searching her face with hostile eyes. 'That's surprising, too, Susan, after all you've said.'

She closed her eyes, pressing her uninjured hand hard against her temple. 'Yes, I know I There was nothing else I could do, in the circumstances.' Roger laughed harshly. 'You'll be telling me you're going to work for Courage next,' he guessed at a venture. 'It's common knowledge in the dale that he's already asked you.' Susan opened her eyes. She was well aware of the gossip that went on in the dale, but she had never felt irked by it before, recognising it as the kindly curiosity it generally was where her family were concerned. 'Yes,' she admitted, 'I am going to work at the mill. I've just got the job, as a matter of fact.' He stared at her incredulously. 'Do you mean that Courage had the audacity to offer it to you again after this accident, which put him in your debt?' he demanded. 'It wasn't offered to me,' Susan told him steadily. 'Not a second time. I asked if it was still vacant.' 'You asked if you could have it? Susan, in heaven's name, why?' He was more angry than he could remember being in all his life before, and Susan's continuing calm was maddening. 'Because I needed the money. It's simple enough.'

'If you needed money all that badly,' he said, 'why couldn't you have come to me?' He caught her by the shoulders, but she pressed him away from her with her hands against his chest. 'I couldn't, Roger,' she said. 'Please try to understand. This isn't money I could possibly borrow. I've got to earn it. You see, I might—lose it in the end.' 'All this is too damned mysterious for me!' he cried, stamping off in the direction of the brake. 'You talk as if you and Courage had a guilty secret.' 'The secret is entirely my own,' she smiled. 'And it's not exactly guilty.' He swung round to face her again. 'It has something to do with Courage?' The hot colour ran up into her cheeks. 'No,' she said, 'it has nothing to do with Graham Courage. He's only a means to an end.' The jealousy went out of Roger's eyes and he regarded her amusedly. 'Susan Danely, the hard-headed business woman!' he mocked. 'It takes a lot of believing, Sue, when you look so sweet!' He got into the brake, starting the engine as he added: 'I'd watch out for Courage, though. He's not the man to trifle with.'

CHAPTER FIVE SUSAN began work at the mill a week later, walking across the moor that first morning with time to spare and mixed feelings in .her heart. She knew what it was going to cost her to walk calmly through the gates of Danely's and climb the wooden stair to the offices at the far end of the building, and even out there on the moor her heart all but failed her at the sight of the square mill with its tall stack standing out against the sky. It would be so easy to turn back, to say that she had changed her mind, and then she knew that it wouldn't be easy, not for Susan Danely. Pride would force her to go on, to keep the promise she had made. In spite of that, her heart was thudding heavily as she climbed the steep road leading to the heavy iron gates of the mill. The workers were already at the looms and she could hear the hum of the machines and the clatter of the great shuttles as she approached, a nostalgic sound that clutched at her throat and brought swift tears to the back of her eyes. She blinked them back hastily as old Ezra Proffit came to greet her. The caretaker was evidently keenly embarrassed by the situation, touching his cap respectfully as she approached. 'My, Miss Susan,' he observed bluntly, 'it's changed days seeing you coming here like this. I'd have given a lot to see a Danely opening the mill again and not one working for a stranger.' Susan caught her lower lip between her teeth. 'It's not really so very much different, Ezra,' she pointed out. 'I did the office work before, in my father's time. I shall be doing exactly the same sort of work now.'

She had made no reference to his remark about the stranger in their midst because after all, it had been her own description of Graham Courage right from the beginning and she could scarcely resent it now. It had sounded oddly ungrateful, coming from Ezra, however, since he was now dependent upon the Courages for his living. The thought lingered as she mounted the steps. A week ago she would have considered Ezra equally disloyal to the family he had served for fifty odd years if he-had thought otherwise 1 Pushing open the swing doors, she went through into the vestibule, acknowledging the time clerk with a smile. 'Hullo, John! You back again? Mr Courage seems to have recruited all the Old Guard!' 'It was more convenient for me than travelling to Rochdale every day, Miss Susan,' the man said, meeting her eyes with a vague apology in his own. 'We were thinking of flitting, too, getting a house in the town, but my mother would never have been happy there. It was no fun, though, going by bus all that way, especially in the winter when the roads were bad.' 'No,' Susan said, 'I agree with you.' She stepped briskly towards his cubby-hole. 'Where do I clock in?' He looked embarrassed. 'I don't think you'll need to do that, Miss Susan,' he said. 'Mr Courage said it wouldn't be necessary when you had your father to look after before you came to work.' Susan took up the key. Her mouth was determined.

'I'm no different from anyone else around here, John,' she said. 'I clocked in with the others when I worked with my father and I don't want any concessions from Mr Courage.' She saw the clerk look up, startled, his eyes going to a point just behind her head, but she punched the clock on her new number before she turned. Graham Courage came leisurely towards her from the direction of the factory door, and she knew that he must have heard that last remark, although his expression did not betray any immediate reaction to it. 'Good morning, Susan,' he said. 'I've made a few alterations to the office layout, so perhaps you'll tell me what you think of them.' His tone conveyed his undoubted conviction that she would tell him, but he had walked away before she found an answer. The outer office, where she would work, had been completely redecorated. The room, with its north aspect, needed light, and the walls had been painted in a pale shade of apricot, giving them added warmth. There was a carpet on the floor, covering the faded linoleum, and her old desk stood across one corner, with a new typing table near the window. She saw that an electric radiator had been fitted into the wall in place of the original open fireplace which had always been considered dangerous, because of the wool waste lying about in the yard below, but which had been a necessity up there in the winter. The whole room looked warm and friendly and welcoming until her eyes fell on the frosted glass door of the inner sanctum.

GRAHAM B. COURAGE, she read in small, neat capitals, and the black letters danced mockingly before her. No other name had ever adorned that door but the name of Danely. Paul! she thought passionately. Paul! Why had it to come to this? If reason suggested that even Paul's willingness could have done little to save the mill, she brushed it aside. The bitterness of returning to Danely's like this rushed in full. upon her, uppermost once more for all her brave determination to subdue it, and she told herself that she would only work there until she had enough money to go in search of Paul, for her father's sake. The morning went far more quickly than she would have imagined and it was eleven o'clock before she was disturbed again. She thought that Graham must be avoiding the inner sanctum, but whether it was to give her time to settle down in her new quarters or from a sense of embarrassment on his own part she did not know. Then, quite suddenly, she was laughing at the thought of her new employer ever being embarrassed about anything. Confronted with an avalanche, he would still retain his supercilious calm, she assured herself. There was nothing more for her to do till Graham did come, she thought, looking round the tidy office. The first day in a new job was bound to be aimless, but she had expected an accumulation of work from the four weeks since the mill had been opened. He had obviously been able to cope with the initial correspondence, however, and it proved how hard he must have worked these past few weeks, allowing himself very little leisure even in the evenings. He had obviously not had much time ,to make social, contacts, even at Peverils.

She went over to the window and gazed out. Beyond her, the moors stretched green and bare to the skyline with the sheep that were the mill's life's blood grazing placidly in the sun and the high clouds sailing over them. This had been the view she had seen each morning from her window at Fourstones, and only the crude galvanized iron sheds which Graham Courage had erected under the stone boundary wall marred it now. The door behind her opened and she knew without looking round that he had come into the room. She could feel the draught from the outside stairway, but she waited until he had closed the door and crossed the room. He came to stand beside her, looking out through the open window. 'At least things haven't changed much out there,' he observed, his eyes ranging the distant slopes. 'High cloud and wind and browsing sheep, It's all the same view from your window, Susan. I couldn't alter that.' She turned slowly, still with the cup in her hands. 'You've done your best,' she accused him stormily, moved out of all proportion by the disfigured beauty of her view. 'Couldn't you have left something of the backwoods behind you?' He glanced beyond her at the unsightly iron erections and smiled. 'You mean the sheds? I'm sorry,' he said, 'but they are absolutely necessary. I had them erected there because I wanted them to be away from the mill. It was essential, you see, that they should be, just at first.' 'They're an eyesore,' she told him, turning back to the window. 'They can be seen everywhere you look! Once this valley was a

beauty spot and we tried to keep it that way, but now you're spoiling it, destroying its quiet and taking away its peace!' 'Its quiet and peace are depression!' He caught her by the shoulders, turning her to face him, and for a moment she thought that he was about to shake her, as he might have done a stubborn child determined not to see reason. 'Some things will have to go if Danely's is to live again,' he .went on less harshly, 'but you won't see that. You won't work for Danely's, You're too wrapped up in the past, too hide-bound by pride to admit that anyone—a stranger— could do for the mill what your family have failed to do!' Utterly taken aback, Susan stood gazing at him, seeing naked anger in his face for the first time. It died even as she looked, and he released her instantly. 'I'm sorry,' he said, turning back to the desk, 'but I happen to care about Danely's. I've sunk a lot of money in it, if you would like to put it that way, and I want some return. The sheds are a temporary measure to try out a theory of mine. If it works, it will revolutionise the wool trade up here. I intended to use it in Australia, and then I decided to bring it to this country and market it here. It's a process which I guess your friends the Hoylands would give their ears to possess,' he added dryly. 'It's simple enough, too, once you've seen it.' That part of him, the arrogance and boastful nature of the man, was typically 'backwoods', Susan told herself. Only a fool in love with him would consider it straightforward and refreshing in an age of humbug. A fool in love! Tears pricked at the back of her eyes, humiliating tears aggravated by the conviction that his own interests were concentrated solely

on the mill, and she remained stiffly by the window while he began to pour out his tea. 'Don't take it so much to heart, Susan,' he advised briefly. 'There needn't be any more changes, here or at Crofts. I can promise you that much.' He was holding out some sort of olive branch, she supposed, but she told herself that they could never be friends. There was too great a gulf between them for that—pride and resentment, and something else that was strong and sharp as a drawn sword. They were destined to do battle to the end of their association here at Danely's and after that they could avoid each other like the plague. It was difficult to avoid him even socially, however. She discovered that the following weekend when habit took her to Peverils and she found Lena in the midst of preparing a tennis party. 'You'll stay, of course,' Lena said, trying to ignore the fact that Susan had not been told about the party beforehand. 'I knew there was no need to invite you formally, since you would be coming with Roger. There's been a lot to do,' she added when Susan did not reply. 'Roger has been away again—in Scotland this time—and I've lost the extra help I had in the house. It's not so easy to find since Graham started employing so many people at Danely's,' she added with a keen look in Susan's direction. Susan would not be drawn, however. Whatever she felt about Graham in her secret heart, she could keep it to herself now. Lena had changed towards her, becoming almost secretive, but Susan knew her too well not to be able to see that Graham had a mounting attraction for her.

'Who's coming to the party?' she asked, glancing through the open french windows to the freshly-marked courts and thinking that she needn't have waited for Lena's flush to guess the answer. 'The Courages promised, and Claire Skelton from Pennington. And I think Roger said something about bringing the Cliffords through from Leeds.' Susan felt that she was not interested in the remainder of Lena's party. The fact that Graham Courage would be there convinced her that she must go, but even as she was deciding what to say to Lena to excuse herself, a black car turned the bend in the drive and drew up before the windows. 'Come in this way, along the terrace!' Lena rushed to welcome her guests. 'We're going to sit out here between sets. It's such a lovely day!' There was no way of escape for Susan. It would only make her look ridiculous if she backed out now when they had seen her standing there with her racquet in her hand. Lena had never prepared so lavishly for a Saturday afternoon's tennis before, and once again the dress she was wearing looked new. She went to meet Beth with outstretched hands. 'I'm only going to be an ornament this afternoon!' Beth said as she turned to greet Susan. 'The main thing is, of course, that I can walk—thanks to you!' She still limped a little, and Susan pulled a deck chair forward for her to sit down. 'Has Graham told that Maru galloped home in fine style half an hour ahead of us?' 'Yes, I did hear.' Graham had told Susan about Maru that first day at the office when she had asked about his sister. 'I'm glad he wasn't hurt.'

'Gray thinks he should be packed off in disgrace,' Beth said with a quick smile in her brother's direction, 'but I won't hear of it. He really is fairly reliable, and one can't blame him for kicking over the traces once in a while. It shows spirit, I think.' 'Is that an excuse, or does it just mean that he should be curbed more often?' her brother asked, sitting down on the terrace steps at their feet. His eyes were on Susan, but they were mild and friendly so that it was perhaps foolish of her to imagine that his words had been directed to her. 'It's an excuse!' Beth told him, bending down to touch his arm. 'You won't be too harsh with him, Gray, will you?' 'The incident is closed,' he said with a brief smile. 'I don't believe in harbouring a grudge.' The sound of a car coming swiftly up the drive brought Lena to her feet. 'This must be Roger!' she exclaimed. 'Will you tell him we're out here, Susan?' Susan went to meet Roger with a wry smile, Lena was not taking any chances, but she needn't have made it quite so obvious that she paired her brother and her friend as a matter of course. 'Hullo, Sue!' Roger greeted her. 'Sorry I'm a bit late, but I just couldn't make it a moment earlier.' He was full of exuberance, having brought his own contribution to the party in the shape of a partner for Beth. 'You know Alan Ranger, I think, and of course you know the Cliffords.'

Susan acknowledged his companions as they got out of the car. She had met the Cliffords several times and liked them, but she was not quite sure about Alan Ranger. He looked self-assured and a trifle vain, and she could not think that Beth Courage would be greatly impressed by him. 'Lena has asked us for the weekend,' Jill Clifford told Susan on their way round to the terrace. 'She's been through in Leeds once or twice recently and there seems to be quite a change in her. She's not nearly so moody as she used to be. In fact, Eric thought her quite gay last time. She spoke a lot about some people called Courage.' 'They're here,' Susan warned. 'You know, of course, that they've bought the mill.' Jill nodded. 'I didn't like to mention it, Sue, knowing how you've always felt about Danely's,' she confessed. 'What are they really like, these people? I thought Lena sounded rather— bemused by them.' 'You can judge for yourself,' Susan said, thrusting her forward. 'Lena's simply aching to introduce you!' Lena was certainly blossoming under Graham's disinterested eye, she thought, watching as the introductions were made. But was Graham so very disinterested? Perhaps this was the way he would take to get Peverils back in time. The thought stood starkly in her mind as Lena's final guest arrived. Claire Skelton was small and plump, with a pleasant disposition and a merry eye, and she played a surprisingly fast game of tennis.

'How about it, Sue?' Roger asked at her elbow. 'You and I against Alan and Clare, and Jill and Eric can take on Lena and Mr Courage.' All cut and dried, Susan thought, feeling suddenly impatient with Roger for monopolizing her quite so pointedly. They had often played together and they were well matched, but she had never acknowledged him as a permanent partner before. It seemed, though, that Roger was prepared to force the issue. 'Give me ten minutes to change and I'll be with you,' he said, departing in the direction of the stairs once he had settled everything to his satisfaction, and Susan turned to find Graham Courage's blue eyes full upon her, the faintest of smiles twisting one corner of his handsome mouth. 'I seem to be up against some stiff opposition,' he observed coolly. 'Lena tells me the Cliffords are experts.' 'They've played a good deal,' Susan acknowledged. 'And they like to play together.' 'We're all definitely partnered, I take it,' he remarked, the smile deepening to amusement. 'I hope I'm not going to let Lena down, but tennis was never much in my line.' They played throughout the afternoon, changing their formation only once, when Susan found herself partnered by Graham after tea. It had come about by his own design, too. 'I had to split up these undesirable partnerships somehow,' he said under his breath as they walked back to the court together. 'I've always had a profound dislike for monopolies.' 'You were losing,' she accused him. 'Was that your reason?'

'Not entirely, but it will do! One has to keep one's eye too closely on the ball or one's mind on the job, or something. I've told you before that tennis was never my game.' They played four sets, and Susan knew that she was at the peak of her game. Perhaps because of that, they won. 'The perfect partnership?' he queried sardonically as he carried her racquet back to the terrace where Lena was waiting to pour drinks for them. 'A few minutes ago,' Susan reminded him dryly, 'you were not condemning all partnerships as undesirable.' 'Not all,' he murmured as Roger came towards them with a drink for Susan. 'You'll all promise to come again tomorrow?' Lena asked, looking directly at Graham. 'Jill and Eric will still be here, and Claire can come over in the afternoon.' Susan followed Jill through into the drawing-room and set her glass down on a side table. It felt suddenly chilly out there on the terrace and she had not waited for Graham's answer. 'He's marvellous!' Jill said under her breath. 'But Lena's only making a fool of herself, poor child!" Susan did not ask her what she meant by that. It seemed that Lena's attachment to Graham had become obvious to everyone, and no doubt Graham himself was fully aware of it. Nothing confused him; nothing left him in doubt for very long. He came in from the terrace with Beth.

'Can we give you a lift home?' Beth asked Susan. 'We brought the car down.' 'There's no need for you to rush off so early, Sue,' Roger said aggressively. 'Stay for a meal now that you are here and I'll run you home afterwards.' Susan did not want to stay, nor did she want to be run home by Roger afterwards and made love to in the usual way. The afternoon had left her unsettled and strangely at variance with their accepted routine, and she wanted to end it as quickly and politely as possible. 'I think I must go, if you don't mind,' she said, avoiding Roger's scowl. 'My father likes a hot meal at this time of night and he won't cook it if he's left to his own devices. He's probably been out on the hill painting all day without giving food a thought.' Jill Clifford walked with her to the door. 'How is Paul these days?' she asked. 'We haven't heard from him for months. Is he still in London?' 'I think so.' Susan struggled with the fastening of her jacket to hide the sudden confusion in her eyes. How was she to tell this old friend of Paul's that she was far from sure where her brother was? 'We haven't heard from him for several weeks, but that may be because he's too busy to write.' 'He's still painting?' Jill asked. 'Still following in his father's footsteps?' 'Not exactly!' Susan could laugh now. 'Paul's one of the new school. He paints with the use of symbols.'

'He'll recover,' Graham Courage said at her elbow. 'He can be forgiven a fad or two if he produces good work in the end. Artists are sometimes given that way at the beginning of their career, but it generally proves itself to be nothing more than a phase, a type of growing pain.' Jill laughed infectiously. 'Does that mean that you haven't a great deal of use for artists, Mr Courage?' she asked. 'On the contrary,' he answered, 'a genuine artist has my . deepest admiration.' Susan thought swiftly of her father, of this man's interest in his pictures and the sincerity of his praise for them. He seemed to have rescued her from a difficult situation where Paul was concerned, too, preventing Jill from asking any further questions, but there was no real reason why he should champion Paul, whom he had never met. Lena went with them to the car and Roger followed ungraciously at Susan's heels. 'When do I see you again?' he asked, loud enough for Graham Courage to hear. 'You can't be working all the time.' 'I don't know.' Susan would not commit herself. 'I really am busy, Roger.' 'Otherwise engaged, in fact?' he suggested in a furious undertone. 'Look here, Sue——' Whatever his protest, it was cut short by Graham Courage holding the car door open for her to get in. If he had overheard their brief

passage of arms he gave no sign, letting Beth monopolize the conversation as they drove away. Beth appeared to have enjoyed the afternoon, but she looked slightly tired in spite of her chatter, and Graham suggested that he should drop her at Fourstones on their way past the house. 'I won't ask you to come in, Susan,' Beth said. 'I know you want to get home, but you will come to see us some time, won't you?' There was the barest hesitation before Susan answered and she could feel Graham's eyes on her, waiting for what she would say. 'It would be just as easy for you to come to Windyridge.' The words had sounded tense and difficult to utter, but only Graham appeared to notice their reluctance. 'I'd love to come,' Beth said. 'I'd like to meet your father, Susan. Gray has told us so much about him.' 'You can do that any afternoon,' her brother assured her. 'I'm quite sure Mr Danely will make you welcome whenever you feel like going to Windyridge, but leave Maru behind and go on foot!' Beth laughed as they pulled up at Fourstones, turning to wave to Susan as she limped towards the door. When she had been swallowed up in the shadows of the hall, Graham let in his clutch and drove down the winding avenue in the direction of the moor. Susan felt guilty and ashamed. She liked Beth, and she might easily have offended her by what had more or less been a blunt refusal to come to Fourstones a second time.

'I—seem to say the wrong things very often,' she began awkwardly. 'I didn't mean to be rude about Beth's invitation just now. It's only that—that -' 'It's difficult to fight down a prejudice?' he suggested. 'Well, you needn't worry about Beth. She wouldn't see it that way. In spite of her youth, I think she would understand.' On the brow of the hill above Windyridge he pulled up, and she knew that this was as far as he intended to come. 'I'm going to London next week,' he announced abruptly, 'and I shall want you to come with me. There'll be plenty of work to do. As far as I'm concerned, it will be a business trip, but I think Beth could do with a look at the bright lights. Is there anyone you could leave with your father for a few days?' Susan bit back the retort on her lips. It was maddening to be taken for granted like this, to be spoken about and moved around like a piece of furniture, but the fact remained that it would suit her very well to go to London. It would bring her meeting with Paul nearer by weeks, perhaps even by months, and put an end to her work at Danely's sooner than she expected. 'I think it could be arranged,' she agreed. 'There are several women in the village who would be willing to look after Dad for a day or two while I'm away.' 'The possibilities are that my mother may come, too.' He smiled crookedly. 'We'll be quite a family party, in fact.' She got down from the car and he turned it expertly in the confined space. 'You can let me have your final answer on Monday,' he said.

Susan knew that there would be no question about her final answer, but she found it difficult to keep the sense of hurt she felt to herself. Since she could not confide in her father because of his anxiety about Paul, she went back to Peverils the following afternoon, not quite knowing why she should seek Lena out when they had grown so far apart these past few weeks, but conscious of a need for companionship greater than any she had ever known. Lena had been a lifelong friend and their recent estrangement might be nothing more than a figment of her own too vivid imagination. When Roger had departed with the Cliffords and Alan Ranger, she followed Lena into the garden, explaining about the visit to London as casually as she could. 'I've been saving up to go,' she confessed. 'I've got to find Paul. If I could bring him back to the dale, even for a holiday, it would set Dad's mind at rest. All our letters are still unanswered, and I've just got to find out the reason!' 'And Graham Courage is making it easy for you,' Lena suggested. 'It isn't that at all!' Susan's face was tense. 'As far as he's concerned, this is nothing more than a business trip, though he's taking his mother and Beth with him, probably to do some extra shopping for the winter.' Lena seemed hardly interested in Beth or Mrs Courage. 'Surely he could have hired a temporary secretary when he got to London,' she said sulkily. 'But perhaps you've managed to make yourself indispensable to him.'

'I haven't tried,' Susan said flatly, 'and I don't think anyone could make themselves indispensable to Graham Courage,' she added. 'He's not that type.' 'You seemed to have learned a lot about him in a very short time,' Lena pointed out, although she appeared to be slightly mollified by Susan's flat rejoinder. 'When do you go?' 'Some time next week.' 'Have you told Roger yet?' Susan frowned. 'No. Why should I have told Roger?' 'It won't be a popular decision with him, I'm afraid,' Lena said without answering her question. 'He feels that you're seeing rather too much of the Courages as it is.' For the second time in twenty-four hours Susan bit back an obvious rejoinder. It would be useless to point out to Lena that Roger had no right to a say in her personal affairs if Lena had made up her mind to believe otherwise. 'I'll see you when we get back,' she said. 'I've no idea how long we're likely to be away.' Jealousy and uncertainty took Lena to the door with her. It seemed that she did not want to let Susan go in case there had been anything left unsaid between them. 'Graham is making a good many changes at the mill,' she observed, looking up towards Danely's and the white scar of the unsightly iron sheds which defaced the hillside behind it. 'I suppose he

discusses all that with you, too?' A sudden bleak, tormented look came into her pale eyes, as if Susan was about to take some precious possession from her. 'I suppose he consults you about everything he does?' 'Far from it!' Susan tried to laugh naturally. 'But he has told me about the sheds,' she added. 'I expressed myself in no uncertain terms about their ugliness the other day, and he told me that he's trying out some new process or other on Colourdale wool. It has something to do with shrinkage, I think, but I couldn't really be sure. He hasn't taken me that far into his confidence,' she finished dryly. Quite innocently she had given Lena Hoyland something to think about and brood over in the weeks to come. It was that evening, too, that Ben Hoyland approached his daughter about a matter of finance. When Lena and he were alone, he told her that their expenditure must be cut. 'You'll have to draw in your horns, both of you,' he said, including the absent Roger in his remarks. 'Things, at the mill aren't as good as they were a year ago. There isn't the brass about that there used to be, for one thing, and there's opposition at Danely's again. I've had to sack a dozen men this week, and Morris will have to go at the end of the month.' His upper lip stiffened. It was a sore point with this vain and ruthless man that he could no longer afford to employ a chauffeur. 'There's been a lot o' bills coming in lately for you, Lena,' he added. 'Dresses an' such like. Far too many of them. See that you do with what you have for a while.' He turned from her, scarcely noticing the small gesture of sympathy she made, and Lena watched him go from the room with the old feeling of frustration rising in her heart. If only he would

confide in her! If only he would notice her at times! But he scarcely spoke to her now unless he had some reason for complaint. She turned back to the window, her face ugly with suppressed emotion. What was the use? He had never wanted her, never needed her help. She had never had any place in his life.

CHAPTER SIX SUSAN went to the mill the following morning with a feeling of anticipation in her heart. The prospect of tracing Paul sooner than she had expected made her want to begin the journey to London at once, and perhaps, while she was there, she could make judicious inquiries about the cost of a private showing for her father's pictures. Graham was in his office when she climbed the wooden stairs, and he came through to the outer room as soon as he heard her at the door. 'Well,' he asked, 'what's the verdict?' 'I'm prepared to go,' she told him. 'Someone from the village will look after my father.' He looked down at the letter he held. 'Take your passport,' he said, 'if you have one. I may have to go over to Amsterdam to a conference while I'm down there, and I may need you.' 'But we will be staying in London?' she asked anxiously. 'Probably for the best part of a week,' he said. 'Why?' 'I—thought I would be able to look my brother up while I was there.' 'Paul?' he said. 'Does he never come home?' The tell-tale colour crept into Susan's cheeks as she shook her head.

'Not very often,' she confessed. 'Probably he leads a very full life down there and just doesn't remember.' He looked at her keenly, but he made no further reference to Paul, and two days later Susan slipped an accumulation of documents into his leather briefcase and prepared to go with him. He brought the car to Windyridge the following morning. Mrs Courage was seated in the front beside him and Beth made way for Susan in the back while he introduced her father and put her weekend case in the luggage boot. 'Off to London in style!' Dan Danely said. 'If I was a year or two younger, I'd like fine to be going with you!' The twinkle in his blue eyes belied the qualification in his words. Susan knew that he was quite content as he was, but she hugged her resolve to her as they drove away, vowing that, if it were at all possible, he would be taking that journey one day to see his pictures on view to the world. During the journey Beth appeared more animated than Susan had ever seen her. The brief glimpse of London she had obtained when they had first landed in England had fascinated her, and her youth responded to the adventure however dead her heart might feel. 'No matter how often you've been to London, I suppose there must still be something you haven't seen,' she said. 'I love great cities, though I don't think I should like to live in one.' Her brother glanced round at her. 'So long as you don't think that Colourdale could become the other extreme!' he said.

'You know I could never think that!' Beth declared. 'I feel sure I shall come to love the dale, in time,' she added, her wide eyes shadowed a little. 'It will take time, though, even when you make it so easy for me.' It would have been impossible not to recognise the complete trust and understanding which existed between these two and the fond affection with which Mrs Courage regarded her children, and, as the hours passed, Susan felt herself gathered within its magic circle, experiencing all the warmth of a mother's love fully given which she had missed so desperately when her own mother had died. Hester Courage made her feel one of them, and when they reached their destination early in the evening she told Susan that they were all to stay at the same hotel. 'Gray arranged it that way,' she said. 'We feel very much responsible for you, my dear, and it's such a relief to me to know that he has someone competent to help him. He has a great deal of work to get through, but I'm hoping he'll have time for a theatre or two in the evenings. Beth and I are going to feel very guilty, watching you work!' Graham kept Susan busy for the best part of their first two days in the capital, so that they had little time for theatres or anything else. He had come down with a very full programme, and even on the Saturday afternoon she had a report to type. 'It's really too bad of Gray!' Beth said, coming into Susan's small sitting-room, where she was still working. 'Here you are on a glorious September afternoon thumping away at that wretched machine when you ought to be out in the sunshine!' Susan glanced at her open window.

'I've got a glorious view,' she said. 'The Embankment through a screen of plane trees just beginning to show their gold!' 'All the same,' Beth insisted, 'you'll have to put your foot down really firmly with Gray. We're going to Drury Lane, and it will be an awful waste of good tickets if you don't come with us.' She swung round as her brother knocked at the door and came in. 'Gray!' she protested, 'this is sheer slave-driving! Susan hasn't been out, apart from meals, for over two days!' 'I was coming to apologise and to try to make amends!' He laid a small box down on the table beside the typewriter. 'After dinner we'll all go to the show.' Beth heaved a sigh of relief, keeping an inquisitive eye on the florist's box. When her brother had gone she said disappointedly: 'Aren't you going to look?' 'They can't possibly be for me,' Susan said. 'Why not? They may be a peace-offering, but I don't really think they are. Gray isn't given that way,' his sister declared, standing up to shake out her skirt. 'Oh, well, I guess my curiosity will have to keep till dinner if you don't want to open them till you're alone!' she added. With a gay little laugh she had gone, and Susan was left looking down at the silver and violet box with its cluster of tinsel ribbon on the lid as she might have looked at something poised ready to strike her. A peace-offering because he had made her work so hard! That was no way for a man to send flowers, but it was no use wishing that he had sent them because he wanted to!

The flowers themselves were exquisite, two delicate pale mauve orchids lying in a bed of lacy fern. Their waxy beauty took Susan's breath away. They were something so removed from the dale and her everyday life that she wanted to cry at the sight of them, and when she went down to dinner she wore them in the corsage of her only evening dress, a slim-fitting sheath of coppery satin matching the highlights in her hair. 'Susan!' Beth cried. 'You look wonderful! That dress and Gray's orchids! You'd almost think he had known!' Graham smiled at his sister's enthusiasm and accepted Susan's thanks for the flowers in the same way. No doubt, she thought, he had bought orchids for a woman before. He sat beside her at dinner, amusing his mother by a witty description of some of the people he had met during the past few days, and he occupied the stall next to her in the theatre. The play was new and witty and sophisticated, and Susan appreciated every moment of it. Apart from the fact that she had not had time to go in search of Paul, she was thoroughly enjoying herself. 'Will you need me tomorrow?' she asked when they finally returned to their hotel. 'If not, I'd like to go in search of my brother.' 'It's Sunday,' he said. 'You ought to have a day off. My mother would disown me if I suggested you should work on a Sunday! I thought that we could have gone to Windsor for the day. We couldn't pick Paul up on the way?' he suggested. Susan hesitated. 'I think perhaps I'd better go alone.'

She had no reason for her refusal, only that vague uneasiness stirring in her heart whenever she thought of Paul. 'I agree,' he said. 'Bring him back to supper if he'll come.' 'It's very kind of you.' She experienced difficulty in meeting his eyes for the first time. 'We're not really an awkward family, but it's more than a year since Paul's been home and—and I'm not quite sure what I'm going to find.' The rush of confidence had been wholly spontaneous. She had not meant to let him know what she felt about Paul, thrusting her personal troubles upon him like this, but he said kindly enough: 'Would you like me to come with you, Susan?' 'No, there's no need for that. I may be making a mountain out of an inconspicuous molehill.' She had recovered her confidence now. 'Paul would probably laugh his head off if he could hear me. He never did like to be fussed over.' They said goodnight at her sitting-room door. 'Thank you for tonight,' she said shyly, touching the waxy flowers which she had pinned into the collar of her coat on the way to the theatre. 'I've enjoyed it more than I can say.' 'So long as it makes up for some of the slave-driving!' he returned evenly. 'Beth thinks that London is mainly a holiday resort, and I had no right to monopolise you in the name of work.' 'But that's why you brought me here—to work,' Susan said. 'It's all part of my job.'

He did not contradict her. It was quite true, and she had no right to wonder if this evening's relaxation would be repeated before they returned home. Closing the door softly behind her, she stood with her back to it, her expression distant as she reviewed the past few hours, conscious of their perfection and the sudden warmth of friendship. They had made up in so many ways for all the extra work she had done, and that, after all, was what Graham Courage had set out to do. She found her tooth glass and put his orchids in water, and they were there to mock her dreams in the morning. Inscrutable flowers, like the man who had given them! Beth came to say how sorry she was that they could not take her to Windsor. 'We're all terribly disappointed,' she said, including her entire family in the sentiment in the way she had. 'But Gray says you must be given some time to yourself.' 'I'd like to find my brother,' Susan explained. 'He's working in London and we haven't seen each other for over a year.' 'He's an artist, isn't he?' Beth asked. 'I believe Gray said so, when he was telling us about your father's pictures. He thinks they're first rate, Susan,' she went on warmly. 'They really ought to have a showing.' 'That may come—one day,' Susan said, her eyes lighting up at the prospect. 'He's really most modest about them, but I know they're good.'

Mrs Courage expressed her own disappointment when they met at breakfast. 'You ought to be coming with us on such a lovely day, Susan,' she said, 'but I know how you feel about your brother. Family ties come first. Perhaps we shall meet him before we go north again. I must confess though, that I'm not thinking about that just now!' Graham got to his feet as she glanced at her watch. 'We won't keep you, Susan,' he said. 'You must want to be on your way.' She took the lift to her room for her coat, and on an impulse pinned the orchids back into place against the soft grey fur of the collar. When she went down Graham was waiting in the foyer, and she was suddenly overwhelmingly conscious of the gesture she had made in pinning his flowers into her coat like an- amulet. He noticed them, of course, but he did not make any comment. 'I'll get you a taxi,' he offered. 'You're quite sure you can find your way alone?' 'Quite sure, thank you.' In the taxi, driving through the almost deserted city streets, she was conscious once more of loneliness, of a desire for companionship utterly foreign in her, and she forced her thoughts ahead to the coming meeting with Paul in order to combat it. It had come out of the night like some secret thing the evening before, and now it would not let her go. She had given the taxi-driver Paul's address, reading it off to him from the top of her brother's last letter, and she sat back against the

leather cushioning and tried to relax. Of course, he would be surprised to see her, but that was no reason to suppose that she was meeting trouble half-way. If Paul had been in trouble he would have written home. Eagerly she watched the changing scene, the vast office buildings giving place to shops and houses and blocks of flats, and it was not until they had driven half the length of the King's Road that she felt a first stab of misgiving. She began to think that something must be wrong, that the driver must have mistaken the address she had given him, when the cab turned abruptly to the left, swung round one corner and then another and finally slowed up in a drab and uninteresting street. All the houses looked the same, and Susan's heart sank lower as they crawled along the kerb. The taxi came to a halt before the last house in a drab row. 'Number seventy-nine, miss,' the driver assured her. 'This was where you wanted to be.' This was her destination, and Paul lived somewhere beyond those dispirited-looking windows. She paid the driver and turned to the door, a solid, heavilypanelled affair, oak-grained and blistering in places where the summer sun had caught it. She pictured the dark hall beyond, abstractedly, as she pulled the heavy brass bell knob. Footsteps sounded behind the door, coming nearer over a thinlycarpeted floor, and a heavy bolt was withdrawn, as if this was the owner's first appearance of the day.

When the door was opened a woman in her mid-fifties confronted her with a questioning smile. Susan asked if Mr Paul Danely was at home. 'I can't say as he is,' Paul's landlady told her guardedly. 'Were you expecting to find him here?' Susan's heart gave a sudden lurch. 'I'm his sister,' she explained. 'I've come down from Yorkshire to see him.' 'Well now, that makes a difference!' The door was immediately flung open and Susan was invited in. 'I might have known, though,' the woman said. 'You're as alike as two peas!' Susan had never been told before that she resembled Paul, but she made no comment. The woman ushered her into a room on the left of the door which smelt of stale cigarette smoke and fallen soot and asked if she would like a cup of tea. 'It's on the hob,' she declared. 'I've just finished my breakfast.' Susan thanked her. 'It's very kind of you,' she said. 'I don't know your name, Mrs -' 'Lawdon—Grace Lawdon. Your brother and I used to get on fine, Miss Danely. A nice lad he was, to be sure. Used to call me Ma!' Susan's throat had gone suddenly dry. 'Used to?' she repeated. 'Does that mean he's left you, Mrs Lawdon, that he's—gone somewhere else?'

'Goodness, yes! More than a couple of months ago, it must be,' Grace Lawdon said, making a rapid calculation with her eye on the ornate calendar hanging by a cerise ribbon from a drawing pin fixed in the wall. 'He went off with the other young gentleman,' she added. 'They were friendly, though I can't say that I ever had much use for the other one.' 'And you've no idea where they've gone?' Susan asked hopelessly. 'They talked about going abroad, but maybe it was just for a holiday. There was nothing said about keeping the room on, though, or whether he'd want it when he came back.' A slight note of chagrin edged Mrs Lawdon's voice. 'I don't have any difficulty in letting off my rooms, of course,' she added. 'Good food and a certain amount of freedom, so long as they don't take no liberties, has always been my motto where young gentlemen are concerned.' Susan was hardly listening. 'Yes, I'm sure,' she said automatically. 'I thought you would have been able to help me, Mrs Lawdon, but I don't suppose you know anything about this friend of Paul's? If I could find out where he lived he might be able to tell me something about my brother.' Mrs Lawdon considered this for what seemed to Susan an interminable length of time. 'Let me see,' she said, thinking back. 'Our Linda might know. He took her out once or twice, though she never did think much of hint.' Susan clutched eagerly at the straw. 'Where could I see Linda? Is she your daughter?'

Mrs Lawdon nodded. 'Pity she's gone off for the day,' she said. 'She always does do on a Sunday. It's the only full day she has to get away from the City. She's a typist up at Ludgate Hill,' she added with some pride. 'Have you any idea when your daughter will be home?' Susan asked when Mrs Lawdon had poured her some tea. 'I must trace Paul,' she added desperately. 'She's nearly sure to be late—makes a day of it while she can.' Grace Lawdon hesitated. 'Could you come again tomorrow, miss, and I'll see what she says when she gets home?' There was nothing for it but to agree. Susan thanked Mrs Lawdon and walked away from number seventy-nine along the length of the street. What now? Disappointment and frustration were linked with a penetrating loneliness, yet she should have expected something like this when she first set out instead of being quite sure that she was going to meet Paul. The thought of Graham Courage did not help matters. He had offered to come with her, perhaps even foreseeing something like this, and she had turned him down. When she reached the main road she took a bus back to the West End, but she could not remain in the hotel all day. She thought of Beth and Mrs Courage and Graham at Windsor, of the September sunshine in the parks and boats still out on the river, and the temptation to go there was very strong. She put it from her, however, telling herself that she had no right to thrust herself into their family privacy at will, even if she did find them once she got to Windsor. She must stay where she was and hope to find out in the morning where Paul had gone.

Over her solitary tea she watched the revolving doors, her heart sinking in disappointment each time they revealed an unknown face. It was easy to understand now why big cities were considered such lonely places. At six she went out because she could not bear to sit watching any longer, and on the first corner she bumped into Graham. He was alone, and he gave her a searching look as they came face to face. 'I've been parking the car,' he explained. 'What luck did you have, Susan?' She shook her head, because, suddenly, she could not find words to tell him that she had failed. The tears of her disappointment were welling in her eyes and she knew that he could not fail to see. 'It's—ridiculous of me to feel like this,' she managed at last, 'but I wanted to find him—so very much.' - He took her by the arm, leading her back along the pavement to the hotel where he found a quiet corner of the lounge for them to sit. 'Now,' he said, 'can you tell me all about it? What makes you feel that it's a lost cause?' The fact that she was no longer alone, that someone she knew was by her side, attentive, kind and willing to help, brought its own rush of warmth, and impulsively she was telling him the whole story, all about Paul and her father's anxiety and her own vow to bring him back to the dale. He listened in silence, his, blue eyes thoughtful and concerned, and Susan was reminded of the kindness Beth had always spoken about. 'That was why I needed the money,' she confessed honestly.

He looked curiously relieved. 'I thought you hadn't taken the job because of Danely's at the time,' he remarked. 'But you felt keenly about that, too, Susan.' Sometimes Susan wondered if she felt too keenly about most things, but it had always been her way to care deeply about matters which affected Colourdale and her family and she suffered in consequence. No amount of reasoning would ever change her. Now, as she sat talking to Graham Courage, she felt happy and secure, but if she had been asked to give a reason for this transformation she could not have done so. She only knew that obstacles were made to be surmounted again and that loneliness had scuttled off into the warm September night. 'You don't believe in this "art" of your brother's?' he asked bluntly as they walked towards the lifts. 'You recognise it as an excuse on his part to get away from the dale, a youthful bid for freedom?' 'I used to feel that way about it,' she confessed, 'but now I can't be sure.' She turned to him, her eyes half stormy, half appealing as the lift gates closed them in. 'Oh, why can't we be sure of anything— really sure—when we are young!' His lips curved in the old, quizzical smile. 'If we were always sure, Susan, life wouldn't hold any hazards, and then it would be merely dull,' he said. The following day he took her back to Chelsea, but Mrs Lawdon had no further news for them. She explained that her daughter had 'given over going with the young man' and didn't know where he lived. There was a chance, however, that she might be able to contact him through a friend.

Susan's disappointment was the more acute because she had felt certain of success. With Graham behind her in the search for Paul, failure had seemed remote. As they drove back to the hotel he looked frankly worried. 'I'm sorry we've drawn a blank, Susan,' he said. 'But we'll think of something else.' The frown deepened, tracing a dark line between his brows, and Susan wondered if he was merely irritated by her affairs being thrust upon him like this when he had other, more important things to think about. 'I have to go to Amsterdam,' he explained, 'but I won't ask you to come. Stay here and find out what you can about Paul and you can report when I get back—possibly some time on Friday.' With that he dismissed the subject of her brother, keeping her fully occupied until he caught the Dutch plane early the following morning. Susan went back to Chelsea, almost afraid to knock at the Lawdons' door. This time, however, there was news, if not exactly of Paul, at least of his artistic companion. Tony Stilgent lived in Battersea with his widowed mother, and she took a bus there immediately. Stilgent himself came to the door of the expensive-looking flat in answer to her ring, and Susan was aware of her instant dislike of the man. He was not Paul's type, but she acknowledged a certain fascination about him which might have appealed to her brother. 'Oh, I say, do come in!' he said when she had explained who she was. 'I haven't heard from Paul in weeks, but I dare say he's

perfectly all right and there's nothing really to worry about. We went to Paris together,' he ran on, 'but funds ran short and I came home to try to borrow enough to keep body and soul together!' Susan found herself looking at his hands, long tapering hands that had never done a useful day's work in all his life, and then she raised accusing eyes to his. 'Are you trying to tell me that you left Paul in Paris, Mr Stilgent?' 'Good gracious, yes!' He laughed unpleasantly. 'He's quite old enough, you know! As a matter of fact, I got rather fed up with the Gay City, but Paul is still sticking it out in his garret in Montparnasse.' Susan left him with that. He had given her Paul's address and that was all she asked of him. She walked all the way back to the hotel, and by the time she got there she had made up her mind. She had only three days before her and she had no confidence in Paul's replying to her letters now. A strange, tortured fear that he was in need of help had taken shape in her mind, and she could not sit around in London wasting time till Graham returned. She must go to Paris and seek Paul out herself. To Susan, the personal touch had always seemed the most effective.

CHAPTER SEVEN HESTER COURAGE was greatly disturbed when she heard her decision. 'Couldn't you wait till Gray gets back?' she suggested when Susan told her at dinner that evening. 'He may only be another day in Holland and he would know what to do right away.' Susan looked down at her plate. 'Why should I burden him with my troubles?' she said. 'Ours is only a business relationship.' The older woman's eyes softened, and she put a warm hand on Susan's arm. 'You're very independent, my dear,' she said gently, 'but it doesn't always pay. We suffer for it sometimes in terms of regret and heartache, but quite often we can't be told. We have to go our own way and learn from experience,' she added with a small sigh as Beth came across the crowded room towards them. Beth's eyes widened when she heard Susan's plans. 'If you waited till Gray got back we might all be able to go,' she suggested. 'Susan is worried about her brother,' Mrs Courage told her. 'Perhaps we shouldn't stand in her way.' Susan had counted her money in the privacy of her own room and come to the reluctant conclusion that she could not afford to fly to Paris, in spite of the saving in time. She booked her passage on an early-morning train which landed her in, the French capital at midday. The Channel crossing had been pleasant and she had the

minimum of luggage, so that she had no concern with porters and found her own seat in the Paris train. All the way from Calais till they drew into the bustling Gare du Nord her thoughts were in chaos, wondering about Paul, thinking of her father's disappointment if she could not persuade him to return to the dale, and fearing, deep in her innermost heart, that all was not well with her brother. She could not think why he had decided to stay in Paris, unless it was from some desperate desire to make his mark there when he had failed in London. She had taken a risk coming to Paris unannounced, she realised, but there was some comfort in the fact that the agency which had booked her passage had secured her a room for the night in a central hotel. She had scarcely considered Paris as the enchanted city, and her first impression of it as she drove in an ancient taxi from the station was of a maze of mean streets and dingy shops and a confused medley of vehicles and foot travellers all doing their best to outwit each other in the quest for speed. At what appeared to be the risk of both their lives, the ' driver finally deposited her on the steps of a modest hotel near the Madeleine, and she walked nervously through the swing doors and asked for her reservation in halting French. She had taken her midday meal on the train coming south to save time, and as soon as she had inspected her bedroom she set out for the address which Tony Stilgent had given her. Her first glimpse of the Rue Penrod was no more encouraging than her visit to the Lawdons had been, and she checked the number above the door with a swiftly beating heart. Once again she seemed to be faced with disappointment, forced into a position where a man's help and quick response to a situation would have

been invaluable, but she bit her teeth into her lower lip determinedly and approached the door. There was a café next to it, on the corner of the street, and two people were sitting behind the lace screen over the window, arguing over their coffee and the morning paper. She wished that the door would open and she would not have to stand there any longer in full view of the neighbours. A girl who looked a few years older than herself opened the door. She was tall and dark, with a smooth olive skin and the sombre eyes of the Latin, and her features were classically beautiful. Her clothes were neat, if obviously well worn, and she possessed the Parisienne's gift of wearing them to absolute advantage. Susan began to explain her errand in halting French until the girl said in English, with the barest trace of an accent: 'But you must come in! Since you are Paul's sister, we have much to say to each other.' The flat they entered was small and compact, with a great deal of ingenuity about its planning, and if it looked slightly shabby at the elbows, it was also gay and clean. 'My name is Gabrielle- Daumier,' the French girl explained. 'I am married for many years and have lived in England. So, you see,' she smiled, 'I like it when I have the chance to speak your language once morel' 'But surely, if Paul lives here -' Gabrielle Daumier's dark eyes met hers with a sharp question in them.

'Can it be that you do not know?' she asked. 'Surely he has kept his promise to write to you?' Susan moistened her dry lips. 'Madame Daumier,' she begged, 'if there's anything wrong, anything that Paul should have written home about, please don't try to keep it from me out of a mistaken sense of kindness. I'd—rather know. You see, I've come to Paris on impulse. We haven't had a letter from Paul for months, and I was working in London and had some time off, so I came across here to find him.' 'Fi donc! He is incurable!' Gabrielle declared. 'So proud when he has not so much to show for all these wasted years and the expense he has caused you! When he first came here to lodge he was so full of high hopes, always talking of the day when he, too, would sit in the cafes of St Germain-des-Pres and be recognised without difficulty. That is always his ambition, to be recognised as one of the people who have arrived so that he can repay his father for all he has done, but it is a long way from Montparnasse to the Boulevard Saint Germain!' Susan felt as if she could not breathe. This stranger was telling her what she already knew about her brother, that Paul's ambition had far outstripped his genius. 'You said "when he first came here". Does that mean he is no longer with you, madame?' Gaby shook her dark head. 'It is sad for you to have come all this way to hear bad news,' she said gently. 'Paul was taken to hospital three weeks ago. We were not able to keep him here.' The dark eyes were full of regret, as if Gabrielle Daumier felt that she had failed them in some way. 'You

will see that we are poor, mademoiselle. My husband cannot take heavy work and what I can earn with my sculpture is so very little. I could not nurse your brother properly and give him the food of which he was so much in need.' 'I'm sure you did everything you could for him,' Susan assured her gratefully. 'Can you tell me how I can get to the hospital? You see, I am a stranger in Paris.' Gaby glanced at the clock. 'If you will wait till the children come from school,' she suggested, 'I shall take you there.' She pulled forward a deep basket chair, standing it with its back to the sink, where she had been washing small garments beside the sunny window. 'We will have some coffee when Armand comes in. He is a gardener at the Jardin des Plantes. It is open-air work and good for his lungs. It is no longer suitable that he works at an office desk.' Susan looked about her, seeing near-poverty for the first time in the worn floor coverings and patched curtains and the glass-doored store cupboard which was all but empty. Yet there was a quality about the tall, slim girl at the sink which shone like some luminous jewel in her poor setting. Her face was placid, but not with resignation. It was rather, the reflection of an inner, shining light, the inextinguishable torch of faith which has been lit by love. Long before Armand Daumier came whistling up the outside stair, she knew that here was the perfect marriage, the linking of two lives so completely in harmony that no earthly misfortune could ever daunt them. It was Armand who made the coffee in the end, while his wife ran down to the cafe for a box of delicious French pastries to eat with it.

When Jean and Adele came romping in from school with their battered satchels over their shoulders, Susan felt that she had known them all for years. They were the perfect family. The children were replicas of their parents, Jean with his father's dark, curling hair and merry eyes, and Adele already showing much of her mother's slender grace. She was two years older than her brother and shy in Susan's presence just at first, but Jean brought her a headless wooden horse to admire and sat down on the floor by her side to play with it. Gaby smoothed her hair at the mirror in a curtained alcove off the living room. 'Would you like to see where Paul worked?' she asked, and Susan rose immediately. Her hands were not quite steady as she gripped the narrow stair rail on their way up to the landing above and she could imagine how cold it would be in the winter, up here under the rafters. There was only one . room, stretching the length of the maisonette, a long, low attic furnished plainly as a bed- sitting-room, with Paul's paints and easel stacked in one corner and his books piled on a low table beside the bed. The sun came flooding through a vast skylight and, stepping close to it, Susan looked out at the panorama of the 'City of Light' lying at her feet, its winding river like a silver thread running through a green and gold tapestry. Standing close to her, Gaby pointed out the Ile St Louis and the Ile de la Cite, moored like gigantic ships to the river banks by a dozen bridges, and in the distance the sunshine glistened on the white basilica of the Sacre Coeur on high Montmartre. When she turned away Gaby faced her with a strange expression in her dark eyes.

'Persuade him to go home with you,' she said simply. 'Paul is out of his depth here.' The same thought had been struggling in Susan's mind ever since she had come. She had sensed it, too, when she had knocked on Grace Lawdon's door on the fringe of Chelsea, and here, on the fringe of the Paris Latin Quarter, she was again face to face with it. 'That was why I came,' she said. 'Will you take me to him, madame?' She followed Gaby downstairs, said goodbye to Armand and went out into the sunshine with her guide. The courtyard was half in shadow now and the shabby back premises of the cafe might have looked sinister to her if she had not come straight from Gaby Daumier's bright little home. So much, she thought, for really knowing someone in a strange city! On the journey to Levallois-Perret she found herself confiding in Gaby, conscious of the warmth of friendship as she had known it these past few days in London, but when it came to discussing Graham Courage she had nothing to say. 'He is your employer?' Gaby asked. 'He has been kind, allowing you to come to Paris." Susan did not think it necessary to tell her that Graham had not had any option about the Paris trip, that she had taken the law into her own hands in that respect, and the thought sent a stir of misgiving through her. On her return there might even be some sort of reckoning with Graham which, at the moment, she was not quite prepared to face. They reached the hospital and were directed to the matron's study. Susan allowed Gaby to do most of the explaining, and presently

they were handed over to a ward Sister, a pleasant, freckle-faced nurse who told them that she came from Wigan. 'This should make a difference to your brother,' she told Susan, studying her with frank curiosity. 'In my opinion, Miss Danely, he's just plain pining for home!' Susan's heart gave a little jerk that was half apprehension and half relief as she followed their guide along a corridor and past innumerable doors to a small ward at its far end. Gaby went straight towards the bed nearest the door. 'Paul, mon bon ami!' she cried, 'I have brought you the most wonderful surprise! It is—something from home— something from England!' She stood aside, and Susan was face to face with the brother she had not seen for over a year. 'Paul!' She stretched out her hand, trying not to show the shock she felt at the change in his appearance. 'Imagine me having to come all the way to Paris to find you!' 'Sue!' His voice sounded harsh and choked. 'How did you know? How did you get here?' He looked from Gaby to the hovering figure in white standing at the foot of his bed. 'Did they—send for you?' 'Not a bit of it!' Gaby told him firmly, seeing that Susan- could not speak without betraying her anxiety. 'You are not so ill as all that, mon ami! But naturally your people wonder about you when, you do not write to them, and Susan came to Paris to find out why!' Paul's eyes swung back to his sister's face, burning with a strange intensity. They were larger than they had ever been, vividly blue

against his pale skin, and Susan's heart contracted in love and a vast protective pity. She sat down on the edge of the bed and took his hand. 'And now, because you must want to talk of so many things, I shall go,' Gaby announced. Susan did her best to thank her for all she had done, but words seemed inadequate things in which to express her gratitude. 'DO not thank me, cherie!' Gaby said, kissing her impulsively on either cheek. 'I have a deep and abiding love for your country.' When the tall figure had swept from the ward Susan turned back to the bed. 'Gaby always leaves something of herself behind when she comes,' Paul mused. 'Something of her gaiety and courage and quiet strength. She's always been very good to me, and Armand has been my friend.' 'Paul,' Susan burst out, unable to stem her feelings any longer, 'what made you come to Paris? What made you leave England without letting us know?' The blue eyes evaded hers for a moment. 'It was a question of success—or failure, if you like,' he said, tightlipped. 'I wasn't making a go of things in London.' She put a hand over his where it lay on the smooth counterpane. 'Forgive me for being blunt,' she said, 'but are you doing any better here?'

She saw the struggle for truth, but pride or some other emotion betrayed it. He forced himself to look at her calmly. 'Susan,' he said, 'I'm twenty-three years of age. I must be responsible for my own life or suffer for ever under a sense of the deepest obligation.' 'That's not all!' she cried. 'It's not what you really think, what you believe, deep in your heart! You know that anything Father has done for you has been given willingly. He wouldn't grudge any sacrifice if he thought it would make you happy. After all,' she added haltingly, 'happiness is the only thing that really matters in life.' He pressed his fair head back among the pillows, closing his eyes in an effort to hide his innermost thoughts from her. 'I'm determined to substitute success for happiness,' he said harshly. 'Some day, somewhere, I'll make good, Sue, so don't worry your head too much about me, there's a good girl!' After that she could do nothing with him. Even when she pleaded with him to come home to recuperate, he shook his head and smiled, and all he would promise was that he would write home regularly now. 'Tell Dad I'm doing fine,' he said. 'And as soon as I get out of here I'll try to send home some concrete evidence of the fact. I've heard of a man who wants a copyist -' 'Paul!' she cried, 'Paul, that's no expression of art! It wouldn't satisfy you, just as it wouldn't do for Dad.' He looked at her squarely then, and Susan saw that something had died in his eyes.

'How long is it since you realised that I am no true artist, that the only genius in the family is still painting his pictures quietly at home?' he asked. Susan clasped her hands closely before her to keep them from trembling. 'I don't know,' she said, 'but that's why I've come all this way to beg you to come home.' He looked at her wistfully, but he still shook his head. 'I couldn't, Sue. I couldn't go on being a burden, for one thing, and there's so little in Colourdale that I could do otherwise. I'll look for a job here -' 'And ruin your health doing it!' She jumped to her feet, the hot tears flooding into her eyes. 'Oh, Paul! why can't you see? Why can't you understand that it's not what you've gained in the world that counts with your family? It's your happiness, your ultimate peace of mind -' He took her hand, saying very slowly: 'Then don't take that away from me, old girl! I'd never know a day's peace of mind if I returned to Colourdale without a job.' He knew, just as surely as Susan knew it, that Windyridge could not support them all. Their flock was small and there was never more than the need for casual labour on the farm when there was dipping to be done and at the shearing. She turned from the bed with a desperate sense of frustration in her heart. 'Is there nothing I can do?' she exclaimed.

'There's something quite practical,' he said with a return of his old smile. 'How long are you here for, Sue? Are you in Paris on holiday? Can you come again tomorrow?' His eyes were eager, the home-longing deep in them again, and Susan made a rapid calculation. 'I can come again tomorrow,' she said, 'hut I must be back in London by Friday.' The thought of Friday and her meeting with Graham had to be thrust resolutely to the back of her mind. 'What do you want me to do for you, Paul?' 'If you could go back to Gaby's,' he. suggested awkwardly, 'and pack my things and bring them here. The concierge will find room for them downstairs till I'm ready to go. I can't go on burdening Gaby and Armand with them when they must want to re-let the studio. It helps with their rent, you see, and they have so very little. Armand can only work part-time because of his lung infection.' Susan bit her lip. 'There's only one answer to all this,' she said. He smiled at her steadily. 'Let me find my own answer, Sue,' he pleaded. Going out of the ward, she stood for a moment, blinded by tears, realising how miserably she had failed. All that was left for her to do now was to go home and tell her father that Paul was 'doing fine' and that she had persuaded him to write more regularly in future. She could not go to Montparnasse again that evening, because Gaby Daumier had told her that she was expecting the agent, nor

could she wander unaccompanied along the boulevard, however attractive they might appear. The September dusk was closing in and a rosy haze encircled the higher parts of the city and lay along the river brink. Lights pricked out here and there even before she reached her hotel and the subtle spell of Paris could be felt, like the light touch of a woman's hand or some unknown perfume wafted on a summer's breeze. Something within her yearned for expression, for a deeper understanding of life here in this enchanted place, but she knew that Paris could only offer her the loneliness of London while she herself remained alone. She walked slowly in the Tuileries gardens and on to the Place de la Concorde, but the pedestrians she met did nothing for her mood or restlessness as each hurried to a meeting of his own. The awareness of her loneliness deepened, impinging on the thoughts which she had of Paul and her inability to persuade him to return to England, and she turned back to her hotel where she ate a solitary meal and sat in the busy rotunda afterwards trying to read her laborious way through a copy of Le Temps. She rose the following morning to a Paris which looked as if it had been bathed in dew. Rain had fallen during the night and the streets were wet, but the sun had come out with renewed strength to warm them. As soon as she had finished her breakfast, she would go in search of Gaby Daumier and, between them, they might still be able to influence Paul. A new day had brought renewed courage and her spirits had never failed to respond to the power of sunshine. Nothing, she felt, looked quite so bad at the beginning of a new day. The Rue Penrod was a veritable hive of industry when she finally reached it, with its striped awnings out above the shops and

vegetable carts clattering noisily over the cobbles. Coming towards it from a different direction, she was forced to walk its entire length before she recognised the cafe on the corner below the Daumier's flat, but the door to the courtyard was open this time and she went in without troubling to ring, eager to meet Gaby again and enlist her help. Somewhere in the cafe a woman's voice was raised in voluble French, haranguing the minions of the kitchen, but at the head of the circular flight of iron stairs there was no sound. The gay red door was closed and Susan's heart missed a beat as she looked up towards the bright window- boxes and the neat curtains beyond them The little flat appeared to be deserted. In spite of a sudden feeling of chill, she mounted the difficult stairs and knocked loudly on the gay door. The only response she received was a sudden cessation of the noise downstairs and a dark head thrust through the cafe window. With signs and gestures the cafe proprietress made it clear that she should go into the flat and wait for Gaby's return, and Susan obeyed her with a sensation of relief. To have become involved in a rapid French discourse in a dialect which she could not even hope to follow would have been more than she could have coped with at the present moment. As she had expected, Gaby's flat was scrupulously clean, and she sat in the basket chair with her eyes closed for a while, imbibing some of the peace she had found there the day before, thinking not of the flat's poverty but of the love and trust and gay companionship which turned its drabness into life. Restlessly she rose and paced about the little room, going up the wooden stairs to the attic to collect her brother's books into his suitcase. Gaby would not be offended in any way, and if she worked now it would save time.

Her task completed, she came back to the lower room. It was almost midday and still there was no sign of Gaby's return. Perhaps if she went down to the cafe and ordered a meal she could watch the entrance to the courtyard while she ate, and it would save Gaby sharing her frugal store with her. Her hand was on the latch when she heard footsteps on the outer stairs, heavier footsteps than Gaby's and more uncertain than Armand's would have been returning to his own home, and when she opened the door the tall figure on its way up was unmistakable. Her breath was driven from her in a gasp of dismay. 'Graham -!' The word was a protest, a rapture, a prayer, but in that first moment he did not seem to notice it. He strode towards her as she stood there in the sunshine above him, mounting the steps with quick determination and an angry gleam in his eyes. There could be no mistaking the stern set of his mouth or the grim line of his jaws as he stood looking down at her. 'I had to come,' she whispered. 'I had to find Paul.' His face remained tense, and there was an expression of complete implacability in his blue eyes. 'Did you need to do it this way?' he demanded harshly. 'Coming on your own to a city like Paris, to a place you didn't know?' She looked away from him, down into the quiet courtyard. 'I had to come,' she repeated. 'And I had to follow you!' His mouth remained grim, and for a moment she thought that he was about to shake her as he took her

roughly by the shoulders. 'You don't suppose I could have let you remain here without any kind of protection, do you?' His words scarcely demanded an answer, Susan thought, as she felt the tension between them mounting. Her own nerves, stretching to breaking point by twenty-four hours of anxiety and uncertainty, tautened and her lips quivered as she tried to speak naturally. 'Why did you come?' The futile, stupid question had been driven from her in some sort of attempt to understand him, and his grip tightened as he answered her. 'You ask me that!' he said, his lips twisting in a sudden strange smile. 'All right, Susan, I'll try to answer you as near to the truth as I can. I came because I had to, because I got back from Holland to find that you'd gone as soon as my back was turned, and I felt partly responsible. I went back to Chelsea and got that address you were given in Battersea, and from there I followed you here. It wasn't too difficult, you see.' The steely glint in his eyes kept her from answering, but she was scarcely thinking of how he had obtained Paul's address and followed her. The admission he had just made, the fact that he had come 'because he had to', because he had felt 'partly responsible' for what she had done, stung like a lash and the deep, sensitive part of her that she had kept hidden from the world for so long recoiled before its impact. To her horror, she was suddenly trembling from head to foot and had covered her face with her hands.

'You didn't need to come!' she cried unsteadily. 'You won't find anything changed. You'll only find another stubborn Danely in hospital in a strange city and still determined to go his own way!' Still holding her, he led her firmly into the flat and put her into Gaby's only armchair. 'Now, if you can,' he said briefly, 'tell me what's happened.' 'It won't do any good,' she told him miserably. 'Paul has made up his mind not to come home, but I know it's not because he thinks he can still find success here in Paris or anywhere else. He knows now that it isn't any use, but he won't let us help him. He won't come home to be a burden on my father. He's got too much pride.' Graham made a slight movement which might have signified impatience, but he let her go on. 'I couldn't persuade him,' she said. 'I even told him that Dad wouldn't be able to do his best work while he was worrying about him, but it was no good. He's been ill— malnutrition, they called it at the hospital. That means he's been starving himself to live here in the faint hope that he would find something to do, even if it was only on the fringe of the art world. He's discovered now that his art wasn't the tremendous thing he thought it.' She raised her head, pulling herself free from his supporting arm with an effort at dignity. 'I've no right to be telling you all this, unburdening my troubles on to your shoulders' because there's no one else -' He smiled crookedly. 'My shoulders are fairly broad,' he remarked, 'and I believe someone once told me that I had a remarkably thick skin!' He looked about the sunny room as he felt for his case and lit a cigarette. 'How long has your brother been in hospital?' he asked.

'Three weeks,' Susan said unsteadily, watching the strong fingers nursing the flame before he flicked the match into the stove. 'These people would have kept him here, but he couldn't stay to be a burden on them any longer. You can see they haven't a lot to spare, although they're deeply in love and very happy,' she added without thinking of the inconsequence of such a statement. Graham looked at her sharply. 'Do you agree that that makes all the difference?' he asked. 'With people like Gaby and Armand Daumier it does,' she answered stoutly. 'You would see it immediately if you met them.' 'I may have that honour,' he said, 'but first of all I'm going to take you back to your hotel. You need some food. You've probably not eaten a decent meal since you came to Paris.' 'I- promised Paul I would pack his things, and I can't just take them and go without a word to Madame Daumier,' Susan objected. He thought this over for a moment. 'No,' he agreed, 'it wouldn't be exactly polite.' He stubbed the halffinished cigarette out in one of Armand's ashtrays, taking a swift turn round the room before he came back to stand beside her. 'Susan,' he said, 'I want you to leave this to me—Paul, I mean. Get his books together and I'll take them across to the hospital. I promise you that I won't be more than an hour, if you can wait that long for your lunch. In the meantime, Paul's landlady may have come back and you can do your explaining. I admit that it's hardly the done thing to plunder a Paris maisonette in its owner's absence without offering some sort of explanation.'

'It's no use,' she told him miserably. 'Nothing you can say will make Paul change his mind.' 'I'll have a shot at it, anyway,' he declared, his tone almost impartial. 'Then, with any luck, we can be back in London before the week-end.' So that was it! The whole affair was nothing but a nuisance to him, Susan thought as she watched him go, his broad shoulders blocking the light from the doorway for a moment before he went out into the sunshine. He must find it intensely irritating to be saddled with her private affairs, to say the least of it. When she heard Gaby's light tread on the stairs she went to meet her at the open door. 'I heard you were here,' Gaby said. 'Madame Rochfort in the cafe told me when I went to buy my bread.' She flourished a long, golden twist, which she had carried up unwrapped, and laid it on the table with tomatoes and a crisp lettuce. 'Madame sees all, believe me!' 'Did she tell you that you had another visitor?' Susan asked, flushing at the memory of Graham's unexpected appearance. 'Graham Courage has been here. He's my employer—I told you about him. He's gone to see Paul.' It was difficult to explain why Graham had come to Paris. Better, she decided, to leave Gaby to understand once they had met. 'Perhaps a little talk, man to man, will .help Paul to see reason,' Gaby suggested, but Susan shook her head.

'I couldn't persuade him, Madame Daumier. I tried so many arguments, but they were all useless.' Paul has a stubborn will. Nothing—a stranger could say to him will make any difference.' The word 'stranger' had been uttered reluctantly, but Gaby did not seem to notice. 'We shall see!' she said with a slight smile. 'Your Mr Courage is no doubt a man of the world, with many years of experience behind him.' Susan felt the colour deepening in her cheeks. 'He's not a great deal older than Paul himself,' she confessed. 'So!' Gaby's eyes were suddenly roguish. 'I think perhaps Mr Courage is also a man of stubborn will! Come with me to the shop across the way, Susan, and we will buy a piece of cooked sausage, and when your Mr Courage comes back he will share a meal with us. That would be what he would like, n'est-ce pas?' 'I don't know.' Susan was confused, not wanting to hurt Gaby in any way. 'He asked me to wait and have a meal with him, but I think he means us to go back to the hotel.' 'Eh bien, we shall see!' Gaby returned. 'Armand shall have the sausage for his supper if it is not eaten before then!' Susan went with her to the shops, watching as she bargained keenly with the voluble little men behind the stalls, sensing their respect for this astute compatriot of theirs who was a competent housewife as well as being an artist. Gaby's offspring joined them on their way up the stairs, and in next to no time their meal was spread out on a crisp, chequered cloth

with a jug of milk to be finished between them before they were permitted to return to school for the afternoon session. They were clattering down the stairs with an apple apiece when Graham came into the courtyard, and Susan heard him saluting them individually in careful French. 'Bonjour, Antoinette! Bonjour, Napoleon!' Gaby, at the door, laughed her full, rich laugh. 'How Jean will love that!' she exclaimed. 'Your Mr Courage has a way with children, n'est-ce pas? He has an understanding heart.' Susan could not answer because Graham had reached the head of the stairs, waving to the children as they went on their way. As he came in she tried to read his eyes, but he would not be drawn in such a way. She presented him to Gaby, and there was a swift exchange of penetrating looks as their fingers touched and held. They liked each other, Susan thought, on sight! 'And now,' Graham said with amazing gallantry, 'will you permit me to take you out to lunch, madame? I've promised Susan a meal on the boulevards.' Gaby did not hesitate. 'Give me ten minutes,' she said, 'and I shall be with you!' She disappeared in the direction of the stairs leading up to Paul's attic and Susan turned towards Graham. 'He's coming home with us,' he said briefly. 'There's apparently no reason why he shouldn't leave the hospital at once, and we can fly back tomorrow.'

Susan stared at him as if she could not quite believe what she had just heard. 'You mean -?' 'Paul has changed his mind,' he said firmly. 'Let's leave it at that, Susan.' She could not leave it there. Where she had failed with her brother he had succeeded, but there was no bitterness in the reflection now. 'I ought to thank you for this,' she said in a voice utterly spent with emotion. 'You ought to apologise,' he returned whimsically, 'for causing me the most uncomfortable journey of my life!' So that was it! The sense of irritation not so very far beneath the surface, the suggestion of impatience with her and her trying affairs showing through in spite of his efforts to hide it! 'I'm sorry,' she apologised. 'You must consider me a depressing liability, one way or another. There's no reason why you should have done all this for me.' 'I wasn't thinking about a reason for the trip,' he said. 'I did that for your father.' Wondering why she should feel snubbed and disappointed, Susan tried to tell herself that he was nothing more than an automaton who did things for his own peculiar reasons. She was still, however, grateful.

'Where shall it be?' he asked, as Gaby came back down the stairs. 'You look ready to conquer the Rue de la Paix!' In her simple black dress with a small white pillbox of artificial daisies on her dark head, Gaby looked superb. The dress was good—probably her one and only extravagance for the past five or six years—and gloves, shoes and handbag were immaculately kept. She carried herself with an air which made Susan feel vaguely envious, and it was obvious that she was ready to appreciate her escort to the full. Graham hailed a taxi and they were whirled off to the right bank, across the wide Pont Sully to the Boulevard Henri IV, and on by way of the Bastille to the Rue St Antoine. On the broad Rue de Rivoli the taxi pulled up before one of Paris's most famous restaurants. Susan's eyes began to shine. So much, so very much, had happened in an hour! The face of Paris had changed. It was the gay and shining city of a thousand dreams! Over their lunch Gaby told them about her life in London and it was almost three o'clock before they rose from the table overlooking the colonnaded pavement. Gaby glanced guiltily at the clock above the grand staircase. 'I must go, or I shall be accused of deserting my family! ' she declared, holding out a slim, white-gloved hand to Graham. 'Thank you, m'sieur, for a wonderful afternoon.' She walked away, smiling her refusal of Graham's offer to find her a taxi, a tall, gallant figure in the sunshine, and Susan watched her go with a decided lump in her throat. 'I could almost wish that I were Gaby Daumier,' she said.

'Because she's in love?' His blue eyes were quizzical but no longer mocking. 'Not that alone.' Susan's expression was suddenly remote. 'She seems to have so much even while she has so little.' 'Gaby has learned the secret of life,' he said briefly. 'She's learned to live it, day by day.' Susan had nothing to say to that. The philosophy was still beyond her. 'Can we go and see Paul?' she asked eagerly, no longer daunted by the immensity of Paris. 'It wouldn't take us long.' He hesitated. 'Would it disappoint you very much if I asked you to wait until tomorrow to see him?' he asked. 'You see,' he added swiftly, 'he's made a decision which has been half against his will.' She stared at him incredulously. 'You mean that you—forced him to agree?' she gasped. 'Not exactly. I'm not all that powerful or quite so ruthless as you imagine. The fact is that Paul wants to come home to England, but he's labouring under a tremendous sense of shame at the moment. He simply would not come back if he thought that you and your father would have to help support him.' 'Then what was the alternative?' 'I offered him a job.'

'At Danely's?' The hot colour flared in her cheeks and her eyes looked stricken. 'You offered him work at the mill?' 'Not exactly. The work he will do will be mostly at Crofts. I told you about this new theory of mine and how it gets right down to rock bottom by treating the wool as it grows. I need someone at Crofts to help me carry out the first experiments, and Paul seemed to be my man.' Her eyes were suddenly full of tears. 'Do you mean that, or are you just being sorry for us?' she asked. 'I can't afford to be sorry for people in that way,' he told her briskly. 'This process means a lot to me. It will mean a lot to Danely's when it's finally on the market, and now is the time to begin. Paul knows Colourdale and is willing to go back there on my conditions, but these past few months are still a sore point with him. That's why I don't think we should go out to Levallois-Perret this afternoon. It would be best to give him time to become adjusted to the idea, and in any case, the ward Sister told me that he should have as much rest as he can get before he attempts the journey home.' 'When will we go?' she asked. 'Tomorrow.' He turned to look down at her. 'Which leaves us today to see Paris,' he suggested. Susan's pulses leapt at the thought and she followed him eagerly down the restaurant steps and into the sunshine. Now that he had safely disposed of all her troubles and taken her responsibilities on his broad shoulders as if he had some special right, her response to this lovely, romantic city was instantaneous. They could not hope

to explore it all in half a day, but at least she could feel some of its magic while they remained there. It was a perfect afternoon, with the trees in the Tuileries gardens showing the first of their gold and the blue of the sky reflected deeply in the blue of the Seine. 'Before we burn our boats behind us,' Graham laughed, 'I must make a practical telephone call! I have friends out at Neuilly who'll put me up for the night. Their son farmed next to me in Queensland and they were out there on holiday just before we left. They're the sort of people who really mean "drop in any time" when they say it.' He found the nearest cafe and Susan watched while he purchased the jeton at the counter and made his call. Excitement tingled along her veins and the whole world seemed to reflect her youth. For an hour they walked along the riverside as far as the Trocadero and back along the Cours de la Reine to the Louvre. They had tea in Rumpelmayer's, an English tea with hot buttered scones and slices of fruit cake, and delicious pastries to remind the traveller that he was, after all, in Paris, and then Graham hired what must have been the last of the fiacres to take them to Montmartre. When they reached the terrace of the basilica stars were hanging low in the sky, so near that Susan felt she might almost touch them and drew in her breath for very wonder at what she saw. All Paris lay at their feet, its noise and cheerfulness muted into mystery the jangling pianos in the cafes they had passed a distant thread of music softened by the night air into a pulsating threnody of sound. She felt the rhythm of it stirring in her heart and once again she

knew an irresistible urge to stretch out her arms to embrace the unknown. 'It's all so wonderful!' she cried. 'Perhaps because I never expected to see it like this.' She looked up at the basilica, its white cupola gleaming against the night sky, and Colourdale seemed very far away. Yet in that moment, she accepted Graham Courage as part of Colourdale and her own background without quite knowing why. Away from the shadow of Danely's, they seemed to have regained some of that first intimacy of the spirit which she had felt so strongly at their meeting, and Paris appeared to be as much of an adventure for Graham as it was for her. The gay city with its myriad lights and velvet darkness called forth a gaiety which she would not have expected in him, and she found herself responding eagerly as he whisked her from their high vantage-point back to the heart of the boulevards to dine in- a small, secluded restaurant on the Quai de la Tournelle, which he seemed to find by instinct. Susan never remembered afterwards what they ate, but they sat long over their bottle of wine looking across the dark ribbon of water which separated them from the He de la Cite and the floodlit towers of Notre Dame. The night had become enchanted, with an insistent pulse to it that ran in her blood like fire. She wanted to hold time in her hands, to keep it from running from her, to imprison this moment in her eager grasp for ever. Her eyes shone and her lips were parted in a bewilderment of new experiences; she was youth and life and beauty combined in a breathless ecstasy of acceptance, so that Time himself might have paused to look at her. At midnight, when he took her back to her hotel, he did not suggest a taxi. They went on foot, walking by the Pont des Arts to

the Louvre and on along the river bank in the shadow of the Tuileries, where even Paris's traffic was a muted murmur against the embracing quiet of the night. They stood on the bank, reluctant to turn across the square to their destination, to the end of their adventure. 'I don't think I can quite believe it,' Susan said, looking down at the silent river with starry eyes. 'It's all been too wonderful, too much like a lovely dream.' She clasped her hands on the parapet of the bridge, a slim, eager nymph touching the very heart of what she felt. 'It's—something that might only happen once in a lifetime!' Graham was very close. He stood, suddenly, with his hands on the stone on either side of her, imprisoning her yet not touching her. 'It could happen again, Susan, for you and me—like this!' he said. Impelled by a force stronger than resistance, she lifted her eyes to his, but his dark head obliterated the light, shutting out the world as his lips sought hers in a kiss which demanded full return. 'No!' Susan said. 'No -!' The kiss had unnerved her, that first adult kiss which had drawn her whole soul through her lips and left her defeated and half afraid of its ecstasy. Graham took his hands from the bridge and set her free. Bewildered, she saw him smile. 'All's fair,' he murmured softly, 'in love and war, they say!' 'How could you?' she cried, feeling that he had shattered a golden spell for his own amusement. 'You wouldn't know how fair it could be, nor how cruel! You've never been in love!'

He looked down at her, his eyes inscrutably dark in the uncertain light. 'I wouldn't be too sure of that,' he said, his voice suddenly edged with steel. 'Love was never a respecter of persons. It may come to you, Susan, one day, but you won't admit it easily. You never will until it becomes the dominant emotion in your life, outgrowing Danely's and everything else!' The suppressed harshness of his tone silenced her and she walked beside him across the Place, strangely shaken and half ashamed of her impulsive outburst. If he had been in love once—if that was what he had meant by telling her that she should not be so sure— he would have loved intensely and for all time. She felt certain about that, and something quailed within her at the knowledge. He had lived so much of his life on the other side of the world, out therein Australia where perhaps he had left his heart! Cold and curiously numbed by the suggestion, she felt something that had been warm and generous going out of the night to leave behind it nothing more than a bittersweet memory. On the steps of the hotel he took her hands in his, holding them for the barest fraction of a second. 'Goodnight, Susan,' he said, his voice-cool and impartial, the blue eyes almost mocking in the revealing light from the doorway. 'Tomorrow I'll pick Paul's things up and bring them over here, and then we can go straight to the airport. There's no point in lingering in Paris any longer than we can help.' Knowing that she wanted to linger, knowing that it was more than the spell of a magic city that had made this night perfect, Susan could not even thank him. She turned into the lighted foyer, leaving that for tomorrow, for a saner mood and another day.

CHAPTER EIGHT THEY left Paris in a golden flood of September sunshine. As the plane rose and circled above the airport, Susan tried to concentrate on the joy of bringing Paul home, but her heart insisted on a backward glance, the lingering memory of all that the day before had held. This morning Graham was again the cool and competent arbiter of their destinies. He had arranged everything and there was no flaw. She knew that he had filled Gaby Daumier's maisonette with flowers from an exclusive boutique in the Rue de Rivoli, an extravagant gesture after the French girl's own heart which had lifted her for the moment above the drudgery of a struggling artist into the realms of appreciation and success. Gaby had telephoned Susan at the hotel to wish her bon voyage, and her voice had been edged with grateful tears when she had mentioned Graham's flowers. 'Your Mr Courage—how wonderful he is!' she had said. 'So many men would have sent a bundle of groceries!' Why did other people always see Graham like that, Susan thought—kind, generous and,, above all, understanding, while she condemned him? She could not look at him, could not meet the direct blue eyes across the gangway as the plane flew out towards the Channel, away from Paris, away from the glimpse of something she had lost. She felt despondent and restless and glad that she was going home. That kiss had been nothing more than the accumulated madness of an enchanted day! When they reached London he hired a taxi to take them to the hotel where his mother and Beth were waiting.

'I phoned them last night from Neuilly,' he explained. 'They've managed to book an extra room for Paul.' Paul had scarcely spoken all the way from Paris, but Susan knew that he was glad to be coming home. When Graham asked him if he would like to go to Chelsea to see anyone he knew there, he shook his head. 'That's over now,' he said. 'I'm ready to go back to Colourdale when you are.' Graham nodded, getting out of the taxi first as it drew up before the hotel. 'There's no need for us to stay in London after today,' he said. 'We can still be home for the week-end.' The word 'home' stabbed through Paul. Susan could see its effect on him as Graham helped her out on to the pavement and she was glad that Colourdale had not lost its significance, even though he was not going home to Fourstones. Paul had never lived at Windyridge for any length of time and he must still think of Fourstones as home, but he did not seem to bear Graham Courage any grudge in that respect. There was something about his attitude to Graham that Susan could not place. He was respectful, but the feeling seemed to go even deeper than respect or gratitude for a job, something born out of that brief hour at Levallois-Perret when they had been alone and had thrashed all this out between them. Graham found his mother in the lounge. Mrs Courage had been waiting for them, and her eyes went directly to Susan as she crossed from the revolving doors.

Susan felt her heart turn over at the prospect of disapproval, but the blue eyes which were so like her son's held nothing but relief. 'I'm so glad to see you safely back,' she said. 'I know now that I should never have let you go alone. Beth or I should have gone with you. Poor Susan, we haven't been a great deal of help to you, I'm afraid.' 'Gray has done everything.' The admission had been quite natural and Susan did not think to question it. 'I could never have achieved so much alone.' Graham brought Paul forward to be introduced. 'Mother, this is Susan's brother,' he said casually. 'We're all on our way back to Colourdale, so there's no reason why we shouldn't travel together.' Paul looked confused for a moment, and then he smiled. 'I ought to apologise for inflicting all this upon you while you're on holiday, Mrs Courage,' he said. 'You mustn't!' Hester Courage told him. 'Beth and I have had a wonderful two days' shopping without having to account to anyone for being late for meals!' 'Where is Beth?' Graham asked. 'Isn't the shopping spree complete even yet?' 'She went to buy some evening gloves. She should be here any minute.' Mrs Courage looked towards the swing doors. 'Here she comes! I think she must have forgotten the time.'

They turned simultaneously and Susan saw her brother draw himself up to his full height for the first time since they had left Paris. The dejected stoop to his shoulders which had worried her so much was no longer in evidence and a tinge of colour had run up into his thin cheeks. Beth halted just inside the doors, hesitating like someone coming into a room in bright sunlight, and then she came towards them, holding out her hand. Paul was nearest. 'You're Paul!' she said in the forthright way which Susan was beginning to understand. 'I'm so glad you're coming back with us.' Paul held her hand for a fraction of a second longer than he need have done. 'I—seem to have seen you somewhere before,' he blurted out. 'I don't think we could have met,' Beth said, and Susan thought that there was unusual power in her voice. 'Perhaps we've known each other in another existence!' They all laughed and settled down to tea, with Hester Courage the natural hub of their little group. Both Beth and she demanded to be told 'all about Paris', and Susan saw Graham smile to himself as he related their adventure, step by step. They heard about Armand and Gaby Daumier, and about Jean and Adele; they were told about Levallois-Perret and how helpful everyone had been, and he outlined their sightseeing trip to Montmartre. Susan's heart began to beat heavily as he led them to the end of the day. It meant nothing to him, of course, but a pleasant interlude after Paul's affairs had been straightened out, a relaxation after an irksome task.

Tears stung, suddenly, at the back of her eyes. The Paris night, the deep, soft darkness illumined by a thousand stars; the river like a band of silver and black reflecting the city's brilliance, and the shining spans of the bridges with their stone arches curving above the silent water—had it all been a fantasy, a dream, the kiss at the end of it a brief token of payment which was already forgotten? They left for Colourdale early the following morning, Mrs Courage sitting in front with Graham, and Paul in the back of the car between Susan and Beth. It was almost as if they were one family returning home. Susan thought of her father waiting for his son's return. At least that part of her journey had been successful and he would now be able to work in peace. Graham Courage had been responsible for that, too. He had succeeded with Paul where she had failed, and he. had told her quite frankly that he had done it for her father's sake. There could be no other reason. The sharp, insistent pain in her heart made her doubly glad when the familiar Yorkshire dales came in sight. 'You mustn't be a stranger to Fourstones,' Hester Courage told Paul with a swift glance in her daughter's direction. 'Beth has been playing tennis and riding a lot, but it's time we returned some of the dale's hospitality. We're having the old courts up at Fourstones relaid for next year, and I hope you will come and play, but we must think something up for the winter, too.' 'There'll be plenty of work to do,' Paul said in the tone of voice which suggested that he would welcome work as an antidote to regret. 'I'll have a lot to learn.' 'You'll- love Crofts,' Beth said eagerly. 'But I expect you know it much better than I do.'

'Not really,' he said, looking directly at her for the first time since they had left London. 'You see, I never learned about sheep or farming even when my father bought the land up at Windyridge. I—guess I thought my destiny lay elsewhere.' It was clear that he was not quite sure how much of his story Beth already knew, but he evidently did not want to go on meeting her under false pretences. 'I hope you'll stay in the dale,' she said, fixing him with her serious gaze in the candid way she had. 'There aren't so very many young people left, you know.' Susan and Paul got down from the car at Windyridge. 'Will you come up to the house and see my father for a minute or two?' Susan asked, but Hester Courage shook her head. 'Not today,' she said gently, softening her refusal with a smile. 'I'd feel that we were intruding if we did, but one afternoon I'll come to tea, if I may? I would like to see your father's pictures.' 'You do that every time you look out of your bedroom window!' Graham told her. 'They're nearly all scenes in the dale.' Before she opened the gate Susan turned to him. It seemed that their partings had all been staged there, that the old, barred entrance to Windyridge had closed so many times between them. 'It's—difficult just to say, "thank you" for anything like this,' she began. 'It doesn't seem nearly adequate -' He took her hand, smiling down into her confused eyes.

'I thought you tried to do that quite adequately on the Pont de la Concorde,' he said briefly. The kiss! He was remembering the kiss and thinking that it meant as little to her as it had done to him, light payment for an enchanted evening! If he had thought that her response had been more than he had expected, that also could be put down to gratitude for all he had done for Paul! Sharply she turned from him. The others were saying goodbye and her father had come to the door to greet them. He stood there smiling, holding out his hand to his son, anxiety and defeat and the heavy burden of the years wiped from his face in that supreme moment of reunion. Susan forgot about Graham Courage as she watched that meeting. Vaguely she heard the car turn and drive away amid Taffy's excited barking, but the main focus for her thoughts was the two men in the doorway, the one old and bent with an incurable malady, the other tall and young and alive with a brave new purpose. Oh, Paul, she begged inwardly, don't go back on us now! Always keep it this way! It was easy enough to settle into the old routine when it was a beloved way of life, but in spite of her natural delight in being home again, Susan had to acknowledge restlessness. The week-end stretching between their return and the Monday morning when she would go back to Danely's seemed interminable, and even when her father retired to his room earlier than usual on the Sunday evening she had no thought in her mind that she might have to give up her work at the mill. During the night, however, she was roused by that strange sixth sense which anticipates disaster occasionally, and lay listening in

the dark to a movement in the room next to her own that sounded almost furtive. It came again, the sound of heavy, difficult breathing, and she was instantly on her feet, thrusting the bedclothes aside and feeling for her slippers on the rug. Her dressing-gown hung on a hook behind the door and she was tying it round her when she met Paul in the narrow passage between their rooms. 'There's something wrong with the old man,' he said, pale-faced and stricken. 'I don't like the way he's breathing. He looked a bit odd before he went to bed -' Susan had opened her father's door and in an instant was kneeling by his side. It was plain to be seen that he had had some sort of seizure, but the difficult breathing was easing a little and he even tried to smile. 'Don't—disturb the boy,' he whispered. 'Paul—needs all—the rest he can get.' Susan helped him back on to his bed. 'You mustn't try to get up,' she warned, her heart beating, dull and heavy, in the silence. 'I'll get you a drink.' Paul went for the drink, coaxing the fire in the living- room to renewed life with a desperation which held fear. His homecoming had done this to the old man. It had been too much for him! Susan was still kneeling by her father's bed when he came upstairs with the brandy and hot milk, and she took the beaker from him automatically, measuring the brandy into it with a shaking hand. She felt weak and numbed with shock. The thought of death was far removed from her mind, but the implication of the past half hour could not be ignored. Her father was sixty years of age and

was already suffering from a wearing affliction of the joints which must have put strain on his heart from time to time, and she felt that she was being inadequate, that she had not done enough for him. She felt that her love had failed him in some way and a rush of pity submerged her until she noticed that her brother was a victim of the same agonized self-denunciation and that it would not really help in a practical way. By morning there was such a change for the better in Daniel Danely's condition that she might even have doubted the evidence of these early hours if they had not imprinted themselves indelibly upon her mind. Her father was sitting up in bed as she opened his door, and he reached for his stick, which stood against the chair Susan had occupied for the greater part of the night. 'You'll maybe have to help me this morning,' he said, 'I'm feeing just a wee bit stiff. I must have taken something for supper that upset me last night. Maybe it was the ham—' Susan left it at that, but she went to the mill with her mind made up. She must give up her job. Graham had reached the office before her and she began by apologising for being a few minutes late. 'There's something else,' she said reluctantly, when he had waved her apology aside. T can't go on working at the mill any longer. I—I'd like it if you would accept my resignation.' He wheeled round from the window where he had been watching some workmen carting bales of newly-processed wool from the sheds to the mill. .'The devil you would!' he exclaimed, frowning sharply. 'When did you think this one up, Susan?' He crossed the floor in two swift

strides, holding her gaze with a steely glint in his blue eyes. 'I might hold you to your bargain, you know. Competent secretaries are hard to come by.' His eyes searched hers for the truth. 'I won't let you down,' she told him proudly. 'I'll stay here till you can replace me with someone else.' 'And if I can't do that?' he queried. 'No one is ever indispensable, no matter how high an opinion they may have of themselves,' she pointed out. 'But what about my opinion?' She tried to smile. 'You'll find someone,' she said. He reached out and took her by the shoulders, turning her squarely to face him. 'Susan,' he demanded, 'what is all this? I must be given some sort of reason for losing my secretary.' With a supreme effort she succeeded in steadying her voice. 'I'm needed at home,' she said. 'My father was taken ill last night. It seems to have been some type of seizure, and though he appears to be normal again this morning I don't think he should be left alone. Paul has gone to ask the doctor to look in when he's on his rounds and until he starts work for you at Crofts I can go on coming here, but after that -'

She did not finish the sentence. She was fighting to keep reluctance out of her voice and a desperate sense of frustration and disappointment out of her heart, but it was all so difficult with Gray standing there looking at her like that. 'I'm sorry, Susan,' he said. 'If there's anything I can do for your father, you'll let me know, won't you?' 'I don't think there's very much one can do,' she said. 'If you saw him now you wouldn't believe he'd been ill—helpless, almost.' He gave her shoulders a brief, reassuring squeeze and set her free. 'I'll see what can be done about getting someone in your place,' he said. 'If you would like to go home now, you're quite free.' 'Paul's at home.' She stood with her hands on the desk, looking down at it as if she might read something of the future in its polished surface 'I think it might only upset my father to let him see how worried .we are about him,' she added. 'He's so very independent, so anxious that we should lead our lives in freedom.' 'Parents are mostly like that,' Graham said quietly. 'If you change you mind, Susan, I'll understand.' Two days later Lena Hoyland came to Danely's to offer her services to Graham in Susan's stead. 'I'm sorry Susan's got to go,' she said, fixing her eyes on a point just behind his head because she was not telling the truth. 'We've always been very close friends and she told me yesterday that you were looking for a new secretary. I know you would prefer someone who lived in the dale, so I've come to see about the job.' She smiled ingratiatingly at this point because Graham remained uncompromisingly silent. 'I'm really quite capable of taking on the

work,' she assured him, 'although I don't suppose I would measure up to Susan's standards.' 'What about your father?' he asked bluntly. 'Won't he consider that you've gone over to the opposition?' Lena shrugged deprecatingly. 'Surely it's not as bad as that? We're not exactly enemies!' 'We're in the same business,' he pointed out. 'Your father may consider it your first duty to give your services to Hoyland's.' 'You don't know my father,' Lena told him. 'He has no use for women, and absolutely no faith in their ability in an office. Please, Mr Courage, give me this chance! I'm stagnating at home. There's so little to do.' Her voice broke. 'I'm so little appreciated -' Graham considered the proposition. Susan had to be released as quickly as possible, and here was a substitute. 'We'll try it,' he agreed, to Lena's unfeigned delight. 'Susan will show you the ropes if you come to the office next week, and we'll bear with one another over initial mistakes!' He smiled charmingly, Lena told Susan half an hour later, having lost no time in carrying her good news to Windyridge. She had gone to Danely's with the determination to secure the job simply because she would see more of Graham Courage that way than waiting in torment and suspense for him to accept the odd invitation to Peverils, and now she felt that the world could be hers for the winning. Susan heard her out in an agony of jealousy which she tried not to show. Lena at Danely's! Lena helping Graham to get the mill on to

its feet again! She felt that she could have struck Lena dead on the spot. Of course, it was because of Danely's, because the mill had always meant so much to her, that she felt this way! 'Love may come to you, Susan, one day, but you won't admit it,' a mocking echo put in. 'You never will until it becomes the dominant emotion in your life, outgrowing Danely's and everything else!' The words seemed to beat the air all about her and she acknowledged their truth, her shaking fingers pressed close against her eyes as if to blot out the vision of the future. How could Graham know so much about her just in this casual way? He was sure of everything he did, and now he seemed so sure of the way she must go. The memory of that moment when he had bent his dark head and kissed her full on the lips burned like fire in her brain. He had said nothing afterwards. It had meant nothing to him! Suddenly, shatteringly, she knew what it meant for her, what it would always mean, and her heart contracted at the thought of loving where love was not returned. A dark gulf of hopeless love and longing widened at her feet, and she wondered how she could have come to care so passionately for a man whom she had set out so persistently to hate. Resentment and bitterness had died in her, leaving only pride. She must hide her love, whatever else she did. No one must ever know how desperately, how hopelessly she was in love with someone who considered her bitter and prejudiced and foolish into the bargain! Going to Danely's the following morning was almost more than she could face up to because she saw all that Graham was trying to

do there in a new and blinding light. From the beginning he had put his whole heart and energy into the improvements he had planned and she had shown him nothing but resentment. What must he think of her if, indeed, he gave her a thought at all? Her feet dragged as she walked along the high stone balcony above the weaving room which took her to the end of the building and the outside stair leading to the offices, and she paused to look down at the busy scene beneath her. The noise was deafening, and it was some minutes before she realised that Graham was by her side. He leaned his arms along the wooden balustrade, looking down at the giant machines clattering backwards and forwards on the floor below. 'You love all this, Susan,' he said. 'It's in your blood.' She could not contradict him, conscious of tears choking against her throat, conscious of loss and part of life itself eluding her while she stood helplessly by. 'We've—got to make adjustments,' she said in a stifled voice. 'Danely's will go on without me.' He looked at her as if he might refute the statement, and then he said, in the old matter-of-fact way: 'Lena Hoyland will try to take your place. You won't mind showing her what she has to do, will you?' 'No.' The monosyllable had sounded curt and pettish, and she wondered if he thought her childish about handing over to a successor. Perhaps he did. She had shown him that side of her character so often, hadn't she, when he had first come to the dale?

Deeply ashamed of that phase in their relationship, she shrank from its memory, aware that it could not be blotted out by regret at this stage. Could it ever be blotted out? Would anything she was ever likely to do make up for the past? She felt humbled and ashamed as she looked down at the dancing looms, and when Graham opened the door which led out to the wooden staircase, she followed him up to the offices in silence. 'Don't worry too much about the mill,' he said, his voice hardening a little. 'It may not be in Danely hands any more, but at least you can watch its fate from Windyridge.' It seemed that she would never make him understand. Although she would never regret leaving Danely's to look after her father, she was well aware of the gap that would be left in her life when Lena took over her place by Graham's side, and she was almost glad when Lena went down with influenza at the end of the following week. After only three days in the office teaching Lena her job, she knew that something had happened to their crumbling friendship. It had never been very strong, she acknowledged, and Lena had shown her something that was almost enmity these past few days. She felt that she could not be a hypocrite and go to see Lena, and she satisfied herself by asking Roger how his sister was. Roger had not been to Windyridge since their return from London. He appeared to be sulking, paying her out for going off regardless of his wishes. At one time Susan would have considered such an obvious mood amusing, but now she felt sorry for Roger. If he really loved her, as he said he did, he might be going through just such an agony of longing and frustration as she was experiencing,

and for that reason she was perhaps a little kinder to him when next they met. Her father, the doctor had assured her, had made a remarkable recovery and it seemed that there had been no need for her to give up her job, after all, but she could scarcely go to Graham and ask him to reinstate her. He had accepted Lena and was probably grateful to her for filling the breach. Roger reported that his sister was 'champing at the bit'. 'I've never known Lena so keen about a job before,' he grinned. 'I don't suppose we've got far to look for the reason, of course,' he added. 'She's got Courage on the brain, as well as 'flu, I guess!' Susan bit her lip. 'I should have gone down to see her,' she confessed. 'I suppose she's feeling lonely and slightly neglected.' 'Slightly neglected, I should think, but Lena always did feel that way! She always wanted people to appreciate her more.' Roger paced across the cramped space of the Windyridge living room, glaring out of the window in the direction of Fourstones. 'I suppose this means that you'll go on working for Courage till she can take over?' he demanded. 'If Graham wants me to,' Susan answered. 'I can't let him down.' 'Why not? He'd suit himself if he wanted to!' She would not argue with Roger in the old way. 'He's been very kind to me,' she said.

'And you owe him an everlasting debt of gratitude over Paul and Crofts, I suppose?' 'Yes, I think we do.' He turned to gaze at her, perplexed. 'You've changed, Sue!' he challenged. 'What's gone wrong with you? You've lost all your spirit.' She did not meet his eyes. 'Was it spirit, Roger, or just—childishness? One has to grow up some time.' 'The process doesn't appear to be a happy one so far as you're concerned,' he observed. 'Or did it begin too suddenly—in Paris?' The shaft struck home. Paul must have told him about Graham being in Paris, but she still refused to argue with Roger. Memory was too precious and fragile a thing to expose to the full heat of Roger's jealousy, and no amount of explanation would make him understand why Graham had followed her there. Paul had probably sung Graham's praises nobly enough and had only succeeded in infuriating Roger. She walked with him to the door, glad that he had evidently decided not to stay. 'I promised Paul to go over to Crofts one of these days,' he said. 'Why not come with me?' Susan had never been to Crofts since it had passed into Graham's possession, but she had heard all about the improvements he was making there from her brother. The healthy, outdoor work was

already building Paul up and she knew that he was deeply interested in the new process which Graham had started to perfect at the farm. Crofts had always been a show-place, and under Graham's direction it would probably go on to even greater things. There could be no harm, she thought, in going across with Roger. Paul was more than pleased to see them. He had installed himself in a small office in the house itself, which was occupied by a foreman and his wife who had worked for the previous owner of Crofts, and as far as she could see he appeared to be happy and quite content with his new life. He took them round the farm and they drank a cup of tea with Mary Amery and her husband, who seemed greatly impressed by all that Graham was doing. There was not the slightest suggestion of resentment here, either, Susan thought, no word of the stranger having little right in the dale. Roger had made his round of the farm in a reserved sort of silence, although he had known Paul and the Amerys for years, and he made no pretence about his desire to get away. 'Well, come on, Susan,' he said imperiously. 'If I'm taking you back to Windyridge, we'll have to be on our way.' Paul went with them to the gate, looking about him proudly, but before they reached it he was called back to the house to answer the telephone. 'We won't wait,' Roger called after him. 'See you some other time, Paul!' Susan opened the gate and stood leaning against it for a moment, looking back at the house. 'Crofts never seemed quite so bleak as Windyridge,' she mused. 'It's more sheltered, of course, by the fold in the hills, arid Mr

Marley was wise to plant the spinney when he first moved in. It breaks most of the wind from the north.' Roger looked over the broad pens where a dozen or so sheep had been gathered to start Graham's experiment, and at that moment Graham himself drove up from the bank at Colourdyke with the wages for the Amerys and the two shepherds he employed. He frowned as he got down from his car and he thought that Susan started almost guiltily at sight of him. Roger glared openly. Apparently he could not hide his dislike in his present mood. Susan, with a swiftly beating heart, watched Graham coming up over the spent heather, wishing that she had waited for his invitation to Crofts. 'We've been taking a look at your flock, Courage,' Roger said aggressively. 'I had no idea you had quite so many sheep up here on the hill.' 'Crofts always carried this number,' Graham explained a trifle acidly. 'I've not made any changes in that respect.' Roger grunted and turned away. 'All right, Sue,' he said, 'let's go!' Susan wanted to say something to Graham, but words would not come. They stuck in her throat for all that her greeting need have been no more than conventional, and he passed her with a faintly ironical smile. He believes I'm in love with Roger, she thought miserably, but how can he? How could anyone fail to see how little Roger really means to me? There were conflicting opinions about that, however, and Lena Hoyland had already made up her mind that Susan must be in love

with her brother. She thought about the position for days while she lay in bed weakened by the distressing little germ which had reduced her to immobility at a time when she had hoped to do so much to further her own cause, and she brooded over it until it became the dominant obsession in her mind. When she was finally allowed out of her bedroom and told that she might have visitors, she wrote to Mrs Courage and Beth, begging them to have pity, on her loneliness and come to tea. Hester Courage had a call to make in neighbouring Fenleydale, but Beth went the following afternoon and Graham drove down to Peverils at five o'clock to bring her home. He told Susan that he was going before he left the mill. 'I saw Lena yesterday,' she said, 'She looks almost well enough to start work.' 'Which means that you want to go?' 'No, I didn't mean that, but—but it is Lena's job now, isn't it?' He had, apparently, nothing to say to that, but he drove across the dale to Peverils at a speed which could only be considered reckless. Roger had taken Beth to the stables to see a new litter of cocker puppies when he got there, and Lena was alone. She received him eagerly and with thinly veiled excitement. 'There's really no fear of infection now,' she assured him. 'I told Susan that yesterday when she was here.' She did not seem able to avoid bringing Susan's name into their conversation at the very first opportunity. 'Roger hasn't been seeing very much of her these days, primarily because of me, so I shan't be really popular with them till I'm able to come back to work.'

'He's free enough to go to Windyridge,' Graham felt forced to say. 'Oh, yes, of course!' Lena agreed. 'But you know how it is—every minute is precious when one is in love!' He looked at her without any chance of expression. 'And you believe Susan to be in love?' he asked. The question took her aback, but she felt that there was only one way to deal with it and that was to brazen the situation out. 'Don't you think she is?' she countered. 'They're always together, and would be far more often if Susan hadn't taken on the job at Danely's. It's always been more or less expected,' she lied boldly, 'and I don't think it will be very long before they announce their engagement. Roger has been asking Susan to marry him for years!' At least, that was quite true! Lena let Graham go in search of his sister with a little smile playing about her mouth, and less than a week later she forced herself to walk as far as Danely's, which was another step towards taking over from Susan. . There was much to learn, and Susan's patience was not all that it might have been, so that when Graham suggested that they might work together for a further period of a few weeks, Lena felt cheated and deceived. The fact that her father frowned upon the whole business and had made things decidedly unpleasant at Peverils in consequence, did not help. Lena felt that Susan was being selfish and her family awkward, and that even Graham failed to understand her at times. She was in one of her black moods and these rankled, eating inwards with amazing thoroughness to corrode her thoughts and twist her mind.

For Susan the strain and unhappiness of these days were only eased when she was with her father. His contentment with life was something to be envied, although he did not let life pass him by. He was well aware of all that went on in the dale and far beyond it, but his greatest interest was still his painting. Susan almost despaired of ever being able to help him to his heart's desire, and when the first step towards it came one bleak November day it was minutes before she could accept its full significance. Her father was still talking to the postman when she set out for Danely's, so that she did not hear his news until she returned home at twelve o'clock. It was obvious that he was excited, but he passed the letter over to her quietly enough. It had come from a well-known firm of solicitors in Manchester asking if they might purchase two of his Colourdale watercolours for an interested client, with the suggestion between the lines that, provided their client was satisfied, there might possibly be further sales in the future. 'Dad!' Susan cried, wildly excited and forgetting everything but the look of hope in her father's eyes when he had handed over the envelope. 'Dad, this is wonderful! It's a beginning. Of course, this—this client will like what you sell him, and then there'll be orders for more, and after that we can save and save till we can afford to put on a show!' She stopped to gather breath, hugging him impulsively. 'It's wonderful!' she repeated. 'It's what we've been praying for all these months and years!' 'It's grand news,' Dan agreed, smiling up at her. 'I wonder who their client is? He must be a man with plenty of money to risk when he'll buy blindly like this.'

'He could have seen your work, though,' Susan pointed out. 'You've given plenty of it away in the past few years to church bazaars and the like, and you're well enough known in the dales.' She had never tried to hide her pride in him, and this was justification of it, at last. 'Maybe I should be content with that,' he mused, drawing on his pipe. 'Maybe I shouldn't want to see my work recognized farther afield. It's dale work.' 'Not a bit of it!' She refuted the suggestion stoutly, her eyes still bright with love and pride in him. 'I knew it would come, Dad! I knew this would happen, one way or another!' When they had eaten a hasty lunch, he went with her to the door. 'You'll be telling Mr Courage?' he asked. 'He's always been interested in my pictures.' Susan's eyes were still full of excitement when she met Graham in the office. 'We've had some wonderful news at Windyridge,' she said. 'My father has had an offer for two of his pictures and there's a hope that he'll be able to sell some more to the same buyer. We don't know who he is, but it's made a wonderful difference to Dad. He believes he might live to see his work recognized, at last. After that,' she added slowly, 'I think he would die happy.' Graham stood silently beside the window. She wondered why he did not speak immediately, but his face was in shadow and she could not see his expression.

'This will help to establish the exhibition fund,' he said, at last. 'Will you take him my congratulations and my very best wishes for the future?' His words had sounded conventional, as if he had been taken unawares and had not quite known what to say, and Susan moved to look at him more closely. 'Gray!' she cried. 'You knew about this! You knew about the letter from Manchester! You—sent it?' 'Not quite.' He came round the desk to stand facing her. 'It came from Weildon and Heeham all right.' 'But you made the offer? You are their client?' He nodded. 'Does it disturb you to know that?' he asked. She could not answer. The emotion surging in her heart was a mixture of gratitude and pain, gratitude because an old man would have his heart's desire, and pain because Graham had taken it for granted that she would resent his generosity. She lowered her eyes to her clasped hands before he could read the truth in them. , 'Why should it?' she said huskily. 'You did it for my father.' 'And also because the pictures are the best form of Christmas present I could think of for my family,' he said. 'Beth has come to love the dale almost as much as Mother does, and we're still furnishing Fourstones. I don't think your father would object to his

paintings finding a permanent home there, where they truly belong.' 'No,' Susan said. 'No, he won't object.' 'There's just one thing.' He paused, looking down at the desk. 'Would you mind very much if we kept this— between ourselves?' 'Keep up the mystery, do you mean?' 'You can put it that way if you like,' he agreed with a return of the old whimsical smile, but she knew before he had left her that the real reason was that he did not want to be thanked for what he had done. The sale of these first two pictures lent impetus to her desire to raise the money for the exhibition in the very near future, and she was secretly glad when Lena showed no real ability for her job. She had not been trained, as Susan had, and when Graham corrected her for some trivial mistake, she sulked. She worked mostly in the small office at the main entrance, filling in the time sheets, and this also rankled. When she had offered to work at Danely's her sole desire had been to be installed immediately as Graham's confidential secretary, to be constantly at his elbow, and now she felt that Susan was still occupying that enviable position for some ulterior motive. Chagrined, she determined to take up the cudgels in a childish attack on her former friend. Graham was alone in the office when she came quickly up the outside stairs during Susan's lunch hour, and he looked up in surprise when he saw who it was. 'May I come in?' Lena asked, poised on the threshold with an aggrieved look in her eyes. 'I—there's something I should like to say.'

'By all means!' He rose to his feet and thrust forward a chair. 'Won't you sit down?' Lena perched herself on the edge of the chair. She had come with a grievance which had not been diminished by that momentary frown on Graham's brow when he had recognised her, and she knew that he had expected Susan. Graham offered her a cigarette from the box on his desk, lighting it and his own before he spoke. 'Can I help you in any way, Lena?' he asked. 'You've come with a complaint, I suppose?' He had given her the necessary cue and Lena plunged dramatically on to the centre of the stage. 'It's about Susan,' she said quickly, her eyes curiously vindictive as she uttered the other girl's name. 'She isn't trying to help. When I ask her advice she goes out of her way to avoid giving me a definite answer, and I've come to the conclusion that she doesn't want me to know this job. She's being dog-in-the-manger about it and, of course, we both know why!' He fixed her with eyes grown as cold as steel. 'You have the advantage of me there, Lena,' he told her icily. 'I can't think of any reason why Susan shouldn't be perfectly honest in all she does here.' Stung by this unexpected setback, Lena flushed, the slow, painful colour of embarrassment rising under her sallow skin till it had suffused her whole face.

'You're being a fool!' she exclaimed passionately, all discretion thrown to the winds. 'A blind, deliberate fool! Anyone can see how Susan feels about Danely's and how she hates the thought of a stranger up here!' Maddened to reckless anger by what she recognized as some sort of defence of Susan in his stiffened attitude, she rushed on: 'She's never made any secret of her feelings—not to us, and she wouldn't work for Danely's unless it suited her. She wants to hold on to this job now that her father is well again for some reason of her own, but it isn't for you, or for Danely's, believe me!' Graham let the angry tirade die into a lengthening silence, and for the first time Lena wondered if she had gone too far. She had never expressed herself so forcibly before and she reviewed her angry denunciation of Susan with sudden misgiving, wondering if she had utterly prejudiced her chances with Graham, shown herself for the jealous fool she undoubtedly was. Graham left her in no doubt about his feelings. 'I'm afraid, Lena,' he said slowly, 'that I can't have any of this sort of thing at Danely's. I trust Susan. I have always worked that way and this sort of dissension is particularly distasteful to me. If you feel this way about Susan, you can't possibly work well together. Susan's services have been invaluable to me and you don't seem to be picking up the office routine as quickly as you might have done. Susan's reason for leaving the mill is not quite so urgent now. Her father has made a remarkable recovery, and I think she'll stay on here until we can train someone else. In the circumstances,' he added quite kindly, 'I think you would be happier at home, Lena.'. To Lena that was undoubtedly the final blow. To be advised to return home to seek happiness at Peverils! The irony of it bit into her soul and made her abandon the last shreds of dignity.

'You don't know what you're saying!' she cried, her thin face pinched and stricken. 'I've never known happiness at home—never known what it meant till I came here. You've made me feel— important for the first time in my life, as if—as if you cared about me! I'd do anything—take back all I've said -' He averted his eyes from the naked confession in hers. 'It wouldn't be the slightest use, Lena,' he said gently but firmly. 'Something like this would crop up again to upset things. It will be best to make a clean break now— preferable to doing it later, when we know one another better.' He rose and crossed to the door. 'You'll want to leave straight away,' he suggested, 'before the others get back from lunch. Don't think too harshly of Peverils, Lena,' he advised. 'There always comes a time when the world seems well lost for our home.' She got to her feet, trembling so violently that he had to put a steadying hand under her elbow to guide her to the head of the stairs. Tears had never come easily to Lena Hoyland and there were no tears in her eyes now, only a black and terrible hatred in her heart, hatred against Susan and against this man who had scorned her in Susan's defence. She did not tell herself that she would get even with these two more fortunate beings—she was not arrogant enough for that—but she knew that she would never forgive them for rejecting her, even indirectly. All her life she had known rejection. She had never come first with anyone, and now, when she had sought a way to come first with Graham Courage, it had all recoiled on her own head. She was still odd man out. She began to run even before she had left the mill premises, snatching up her coat and scarf from their peg in the cloakroom

and stumbling out into the thick white mist which wreathed the dale at that height. She was running when Susan saw her from the path across the moor, and she did not try to stop her. Whatever the reason for Lena's precipitous flight, she would hear it, sooner or later, when she reached the mill. Graham was seated at his desk when she got there, and she could see at a glance that he had done nothing all the time she had been away. His expression looked normal, but she was aware of a small pulse beating high in his tanned cheek and knew that he was making an effort at control. Whatever had happened between him and Lena in the past half-hour, it had disturbed him a great deal, and her heart contracted at the thought that he might even have asked Lena to marry him. But that would have been no reason for Lena to leave the mill in headlong flight, she argued. Lena was in love with Gray, madly, compellingly in love. Hanging up her coat in the cupboard, she tidied her desk and went through to his private office. 'Are you ready to dictate?' she asked automatically. When he looked up at her she saw that his eyes were still remote. 'Susan,' he asked, 'how long can you stay here?' Her heart gave a mad leap of joy, but she managed to answer steadily enough. 'As long as you need me.' His smile was ironical. 'You want to go,' he said. 'I can understand that, but this is something you could do for Danely's. Lena has decided that she—

can't go on with the job. She had no great flair for it, as you know, but she—made the break herself.' He drew in a deep breath. 'It means that I'm still without a secretary. I wouldn't appeal to you in this way, but there's rather a lot to do just now, with the new process coming along and the American markets opening up.' He was drawing a quaint design on the blotting-pad in front of him and did not look up at her. 'What do you say?' he asked. 'You needn't have asked,' she told him. 'You know I would do anything for Danely's.' That seemed to content him, because he did not refer to the duration of her stay or even to the fact that they might look out for the successor to Lena. Susan felt happier than she had done for weeks, knowing that the crisis at home had passed without her having to sacrifice her job, after all. It wasn't only Danely's that mattered, of course, it was Graham. The fact that she could help him even in a small way was balm to her torn heart, and if the ecstasy of being with him day after day should prove but bittersweet she must hide her pain and go on with her work. She turned her back on the past and faced the future with that stubborn tilt of the chin that was essentially Susan. Christmas came, with the festivities in the dale greatly enhanced by the fact that Fourstones and Peverils were both occupied this year. The village people had always looked to the two mansion houses to supply them with enough gossip and excitement to last them for several weeks, and this year the excitement was in no way lacking. Graham gave a dance in the mill canteen, attending it with his mother and sister and dancing with anyone who happened to catch his eye. He was easily the handsomest employer that side of the Pennines, the girls declared, and not in the least difficult to

approach. The fact that he danced with Susan Danely more than once was duly noticed and commented upon, but there was also the discouraging fact that Roger Hoyland danced with her, too, claiming her for most of the other numbers as if he had some special right. Lena Hoyland was not there. 'Lena has never really perked up since she had that bout of 'flu in the autumn,' Roger remarked to Susan as they circled the floor. 'Either that or her love affair with Graham Courage has come slightly unstuck!' Susan, longing to deny the existence of any love affair, had to remain silent. She knew nothing of Graham's feelings, whether he loved or hated or wanted to be loved in return. He was still an enigma to her in some things, even though her own heart burned with love for him. He remained the cool and practical employer, accepting her services for Danely's because it suited him to do so. Susan and Paul, Beth and Graham, Lena and Roger Hoy- land. They made as rare a picture of dale-land youth as anyone could have wished to see, and to the casual onlooker there was little evidence of strife among them. Yet it ran beneath the surface of their laughter like a dark and hidden tide, deep and unfathomable in Lena's hazel eyes when she looked at Gray, and dark if not quite so subtle in the angry flush which rose to Roger's brow whenever he believed himself supplanted in Susan's affections. The fact that it was Christmas, however, helped to keep that swift current in abeyance. Mrs Courage planned a children's party and asked both Susan and Lena to help, and if Lena accepted grudgingly, it was as generously overlooked. Susan went to Fourstones with no shadow of regret in her heart that afternoon. The house was full of children, as it had been long

ago, and their laughter found an echo in her heart. When Graham put in an appearance from the mill he found her in the centre of the ballroom floor in a tangle of paper streamers and shouting guests. She looked a little the worse for wear after two frolicsome hours, but her cheeks were flushed to a new loveliness, and her eyes were shining. 'We'll have that once more!' she cried, not yet conscious of being observed. 'Only once, mind you! Afterwards, Mrs Courage will expect you to file into the hall for tea— quietly!' The game was the noisiest Graham had ever witnessed. It was played to music, but Susan might as well have left the piano untouched. She thumped at it loud and hard, singing the refrain at the top of her voice, but the children won. They ended slumped on the polished floor in a tangled mass of waving arms and legs from which she did her best to extract the smaller fry. Graham plunged in to help her and emerged, laughing, with a child under either arm. 'Did Fourstones parties always end up like this?' Graham grinned over a tousled ginger head. 'You seem to know the routine off by heart!' 'Maybe I just know children!' Susan had found a missing shoe and was putting it on. 'But it is like old times,' she added, looking up at him. 'You've—made the dale live again.' She was not quite sure what she saw in his eyes. 'Will you have a moment to spare?' he asked. 'I would like to show you something.'

They shepherded the children out to the hall and got them seated at the trestle tables which had been borrowed for the occasion. 'No need for supervision now!' Graham smiled as the piles of sandwiches began to melt from the plates and the trifles were passed from hand to hand. 'I think we can safely leave it to Mother and Beth.' He led the way through the double doors of the library, closing them firmly behind them to shut out the noise, and Susan stood just inside the room, seeing it as it had always remained in her memory. Firelight flickered along the book- lined walls, picking up the richly-tooled bindings of the old volumes and imparting a warmer colour to the gleam of polished mahogany and red leather. She knew that Graham worked here a great deal in the evenings, but her most poignant impression was that of her father sitting in the deep ingle-nook with a heavy volume on painting across his knees. It seemed as if his presence was still alive in the room, his unobtrusive personality still subtly a part of it. Graham drew her towards the hearth, and it was then that she knew what he had brought her there to see. Two of her father's pictures had been framed into the panelling on either side of a full-length portrait of Mrs Courage done in oils, a younger Hester Courage, with her son's zest for life shining in her eyes and the flush of youth in her cheeks. The lips were slightly parted, and it almost seemed that she was ready to commend her son's action. Susan's eyes fastened on the watercolours. They were her father's best and were the scenes Graham might see any day when he opened his bedroom window to look out across the dale. Her eyes filled with tears, tears for the past and all it had meant to her and tears for the present with its kindness and despair.

'You've been so good,' she said. 'I can only feel— ashamed.' He turned her round to face him. 'Don't feel that, Susan,' he said. 'I didn't bring you here to apologise. I brought you because -' He broke off, letting his hands slip from her shoulders as he looked down into the heart of the fire, what he had been about to say crushed back by some passing thought. 'What does it matter?' he said in the next breath. 'There's no reason why we should think alike even though we've ceased to be enemies.' His mouth twisted into an ironical line as he smiled down at her, and Susan felt as if a door had been closed gently in her face. 'Perhaps we should go back,' she suggested flatly. 'Your mother may need me.' He did not deny her the freedom she apparently sought, accompanying her to the hall and joining in the general melee as crackers banged and mottoes and paper hats were thrown hilariously into the air. Before they had gone into the library Susan had felt that she had come home, but now she felt as if some forlorn ghost tiptoed behind her, the Susan Danely of those other days who would never be the same again.

CHAPTER NINE WITH the New Year work began at the mill in earnest. Graham did not ask Susan if she wanted to leave now. He needed her; Danely's needed her, and her co-operation was a foregone conclusion. Snow came to the dale and they skied on the high slopes above Windyridge, but Lena rarely made one of their party on these occasions. She had drawn more closely into her shell than ever before, so that even Beth could not reach her. Beth, in these days, was like some delicate flower opening to the first rays of the sun. She had never seen snow before, and when Paul smothered her face in it in an excess of boyish high spirits, her colour was like an English wild rose. She had a light in her eyes now where the shadow of her former loving had once lingered, and her laughter rang out on the slightest provocation. Susan quite often envied Beth. It seemed that love had given her a second chance. At the beginning of February the sheep were brought down to the lambing pens and Paul's real work began. Susan had watched him accept responsibility at Crofts With a thankfulness which she could not express in mere words and when he came to the mill, as he so often did, to report to Graham, she knew that her confidence in him was repeated in his employer's quiet smile. Then, one day, the first tests on the raw wool were made, Ted Amery came down from Crofts, and when Graham produced the treated bale he frowned at it and looked uneasy and then downright uncomfortable. 'What's the matter, Ted?' Graham asked. 'Don't you like the look of it?'

'It's not the look of it exactly, sir.' Ted swallowed hard, his honesty struggling with his native reserve. 'It's just that it's—something that I've heard tell about before.' Graham glanced up at him sharply. 'How come, Ted?' he asked. 'I've gone into all this pretty thoroughly, and there's nothing like it on market so far.' Ted scratched his head. 'Maybe not,' he agreed, 'but it's like as not there will be pretty soon. And from Hoyland's into the bargain!' 'Hoyland's!' Graham scraped back his chair and got to his feet, staring at his foreman as if he found difficulty in believing what he had just heard. 'But that's impossible, Ted! It would be too fantastic—too much of a coincidence. They had nothing like this six months ago, and it takes all of that to process -' 'Well,' Ted told him bluntly, 'they've got it now, however they may have come by it! They've found our process, whether honestly or dishonestly, and they're far and away ahead of us now. Adam Holder had a finished skein of the stuff over at the Boar's Head on Friday night, an' it were this idea of yours. I'll take my oath on that, sir!' Graham's lips closed like a clam. He was white with suppressed anger and at the back of his mind a small drumming truth beat with increasing intensity, rising to a shattering crescendo of horror. Susan! Only Susan had access to the formula in its original form. He thrust the thought away, burying it out of sight, telling himself that it was unworthy, but he could not bury his wrath and

disappointment. Here was his secret, his brain child, in a rival's hands! It was Saturday and the mill was silent. He left Ted Amery to pick up the revealing bale of wool and do with it as he liked, striding back across the moor path to Fourstones with some idea in his mind of finding solace there, but before he had reached the gates his anger was uppermost again and he made a characteristic decision. He would face Ben Hoyland with the facts. Turning towards the stables, he saddled a hunter without calling for assistance and rode out towards Peverils. He went diagonally across the moor, down over the rough scrub which skirted the quarry. It was piercingly cold and the horse's hooves crackled on the ice in the ruts between the clumps of heather, but he did not notice. Only when his mount shied at some obstacle in his path did he bring his thoughts back to the scene around him, and then he saw that Susan's dog was standing on the path ahead, feet planted firmly, as he barked his customary challenge to the stranger. A hundred yards away stood Susan herself, but she was not alone. Roger Hoyland saw him first, and he turned deliberately to help Susan down from a precarious foothold on the quarry side where she had gone to retrieve Taffy's ball. His hands went round her slim waist, and he smiled possessively into her eyes as he lifted her. 'Good girl! Now perhaps the rest of the day can be mine!' Graham did not hear Susan's reply, nor did he see her face in that moment when Roger lifted her, but the sight of them together drove the hot blood before his eyes and he pulled his horse round, almost trampling the pugnacious Taffy underfoot in his determination to ride away unseen.

When Susan turned he was above them, galloping away beyond Crofts in the direction of the open moor. Graham rode on, baffled and sore. There were thoughts in his head that he could not silence and the hounds of doubt snarled at his heels. The way he took was the most difficult he could find, away from the mill and away from Fourstones and, more than anything else, away from the sight of Susan in Roger Hoyland's arms. It was long after dusk when he returned, exhausted, to Fourstones, and Beth met him in the stable yard with a face as white as a sheet. 'I came down here so that Mother would think we were out together,' she explained. 'She would think we'd stopped at Crofts or Windyridge for a drink of tea. Why did you stay out so long, Gray? It's so unlike you.' She watched him dismount, seeing the foam on the horse's flank for the first time. He had been riding hard. 'Gray,' she said, 'why don't you get more help at the mill? You're working too hard Why don't you get someone to help you with the selling side?' He looked round at her, smiling crookedly. 'Paul Danely, for instance?' he queried bitterly. 'Well, Paul would be willing enough. He would make it easier for you.' 'I don't think so,' he said icily. 'One treacherous Danely at the mill is enough!'

Aghast, Beth stared at him, unable to understand such a change in him. Was he actually accusing Susan? 'What is it?' she asked. 'What's happened, Gray? Surely you can trust me. What's gone wrong?' He led the horse into its loose-box and began to rub it down, performing the task automatically, like a man in a dream. Beth became conscious of fear and a tremendous inadequacy, but she had the Courage tenacity and determination to back her up. 'It's no use, Gray,' she said, 'bottling it all up like that. It won't help. Don't you remember how we used to confess when we were younger—even small things—and how much it helped?' 'This isn't a small thing,' he said harshly, flinging a blanket over his mount's glossy flank. 'I'd rather you didn't know, Bee.' The old, affectionate name had been uttered kindly to offset any sting there might be in his refusal to confide in her, but Beth stood her ground, greatly daring. 'You've made an accusation,' she reminded him, 'and I'm going to go on wondering about it for a long time. Is that fair?' she demanded. 'Is it fair to Susan or to me?' He turned, resting his elbows on the edge of the empty stall behind them and burying his face in his hands. 'I don't know what to think!' Beth realised that he was half oblivious of her presence, speaking aloud only because his brain was crushed under the weight of suspicion and bruised by doubt.

'Susan knew all there was to know about the formula,' he went on harshly, 'and she was the only one who had seen the process in advance. I took her into my confidence because I believed she was pulling for Danely's, but now -' He turned to stare at her, as if he just remembered her for the first time. 'Merciful heaven, I don't know! Do you realize that I'm doubting her, Beth? I'm suggesting that she took the damned little slip of paper to Hoyland—Roger Hoyland, no doubt!' Beth gazed back at him with fear in her eyes. For one terrible moment her faith in Susan was shaken, and then she said stoutly: 'It isn't true! She may be going to marry Roger Hoyland, but she wouldn't betray you, Gray. You can't think that about her, not for one moment!' Her brother looked down at her in the uncertain light of the stable lantern, his eyes haggard and his face almost grey. 'No,' he said, 'I can't think that of her.' He took Beth back to the house, but he went out again into the night, pacing the garden in bewildered indecision as Beth's words rang, knell-like, in his ears. 'Susan may be going to marry Roger Hoyland.' Automatically he turned back towards the house. Lights were on in two of the downstairs rooms, the little parlour where his mother had moved her chair now that it was colder, and the dining-room where their evening meal would be set. From the terrace he could see Beth moving about in the long, gracious room, putting the finishing touches on the table, and he thought of his mother's pride in Fourstones and her happiness in the dale.

Beth, too, was happier than she had been for months, seeing much of Paul Danely. He could offer Paul the management of the mill and let the process go, but how could he trust one Danely when another had let him down? He stood in the darkness, aghast. Had he, then, accepted Susan's guilt? The light in the room behind him went out and the ensuing darkness was blacker than anything he had ever known.

CHAPTER TEN SUSAN was quick to sense Graham's coldness when they met at the mill the following Monday morning. Something leashed in him seemed ready to snap its bonds at any moment, and he began to avoid being in the office with her alone. She could not understand the change in him, and her wounded heart cried put in protest. His unfailing generosity was something she had come to rely upon, but now it had dwindled in a night. He was morose even to the point of brusqueness, and he ceased to take her into his confidence, even about the mill affairs. The fact that she was not alone in her bewilderment did nothing to help her. Beth was obviously upset about her brother, and Paul wondered if he had made some dreadful mistake at Crofts about which Graham had decided not to speak. At last Beth could stand it no longer. 'Things can't go on like this, Gray,' she told her brother one gusty March morning before he set out for the mill. They invariably had breakfast together while Mrs Courage took hers in her room. 'You look positively ill. I said before that I thought Paul would be willing to help if you needed him. He could quite easily divide his time between Crofts and the mill now that most of the lambing is over.' He picked up the morning paper, burying his dark head in it. 'It isn't the solution you imagine it to be,' he said brusquely, 'but we can try it. I'll be doing this for you, of course, but I wouldn't trust a Danely too implicitly, if I were you,' he warned. Beth's colour rose. She was definitely hurt, and the ungracious words pierced like a rapier thrust.

'That's the second time you've said something like that,' she pointed out. 'What is there between you and Susan, Gray?' she added desperately. 'Nothing but the utmost contempt.' The words had been driven from him in utter bitterness, and Beth saw them, suddenly, for what they were. She saw the scars which doubt had inflicted and the depths of his spirit's bewilderment, but she could not let it go at that. I'm not very clever, she thought, but I've got to get to the bottom of this. I've got to straighten this thing out! She could not press for his confidence, however, and before she was able to speak again, he scraped back his chair and went out, his breakfast left on the table barely touched. A week later Hoyland's announced the discovery of their new process. Graham saw the statement and two days later Ted Amery brought him a sample of the treated wool. He stood with it in his hand for a moment, fingering it critically, anger and distaste uppermost in his mind. He was quite sure it was his own process, hurried into the market ahead of him, and suddenly he crushed it in his clenched fist. It was inferior, but it was the same! 'Wait here, Ted,' he said. 'I may need you.' Tight-lipped, he mounted the office stairs, leaving the foreman to wait on the balcony overlooking the busy looms. His face was utterly devoid of colour, but there was steely determination in every line of his taut body. When he entered the outer office Susan was seated at her desk, and she looked up swiftly as he opened the door. He breath caught in a

gasp of surprise as she saw his expression. She had never seen Graham look like this before. Silently he crossed the room and placed the skein' of wool on the desk before her. 'What is it?' she whispered, bewildered by his manner. 'Gray—I don't understand -' Her eyes were on his, searching desperately for something she could not find. 'It is a sample of a new process ready to be marketed by Hoyland's,' he informed her coldly, 'Pre-treated wool to an Australian formula which has found its way into the wrong mill.' White-lipped, she grasped part of his meaning. 'You think that Hoyland's have got your process—the Danely process?' she asked breathlessly. 'They've stumbled on the same idea?' 'Put like that,' he said harshly, 'it sounds like an unavoidable accident.' She flushed scarlet at something in his tone, but she was still trying to reason this thing out in her own way. 'It is your process,' she said. 'That's what you're trying to tell me, isn't it? And it's found its way to Hoyland's. But how? How could it have done?' He turned from her, walking to the window with his clenched hands thrust deep into his pockets.

'I wondered if you could tell me that,' he said. Susan felt as if the world had tumbled about her ears. Paul? No! No! She rejected the idea immediately. He had been given his chance at Crofts and he Would never have let Gray down. She felt that she must convince Graham of the fact, but the broad, unresponsive back at the window was no help. She stared at the hank of wool on her desk, and then it was no longer possible to misunderstand him. 'I see,' she said flatly. 'It got out while I was your confidential secretary? How obvious!' He swung round, his eyes tortured, but she had reached the limit of her endurance. 'So you think my pride and hatred of you would let me sink as low as that!' she cried. 'You think I'd use something that was Danely's to get my own back? How little you know me!' She was fighting tears, crushing them back so that they would not shame her, but the world seemed so full of tears, tears for mistrust, and bitterness, and love gone wrong. He took her by the shoulders in that demanding way he had, but his hands were gentle now. 'All right, Susan. How little I know you! I accept that and—I'm sorry. I know now that I should never have suspected you, but the process meant a lot to me. It was something for the future—and Danely's.' She felt that he was keeping something back, something that went deeper than doubt, and there was still tension in the way he looked at her.

He went out, closing the door behind him, and she heard his footsteps on the outside wooden stairs, descending heavily, as if he still carried a weight of trouble and uncertainty on his broad shoulders. For the first time the full impact of all that had passed between them reached her. She rose from the desk and stood before the window, staring out towards the hills, staring and staring, as if they held some dreadful fascination for her. Beyond the mill yard and the fence which separated it from the outer fields the sharp outline of the iron sheds stood out against the green of the hill, and her hand sought her throat, as if her breath had suddenly been stifled there. Aghast, she remembered telling Lena about the object of the sheds, and bit by bit, the whole jigsaw of truths and suspicions began to take shape. No matter what had happened afterwards, no matter whose treachery had taken the formula to Peverils, she was responsible for the initial mistake. She closed her eyes in an effort to blot out that damaging admission as she could blot out the sight of the sheds which she had once condemned so forcibly to Graham, but she could not remain blind for any length of time. Thought must go on, driving on the implication of it all with ruthless intensity, as Graham himself might have done. She would stand condemned in his eyes, and her fundamental honesty was such that she could not hope to shield herself. She would have to go to him and tell him the truth. Her heart quailed at the possibility. This would be the end of everything between them—trust and friendship and good faith. She knew that she had possessed these things and now the whole tangled skein of deception and misunderstanding would lie before him like the hank of rich soft wool from the Hoyland looms which he had tossed so contemptuously on her desk less than an hour ago.

Her hands felt moist and sticky as she sat waiting for his return and her mind refused to register anything but the certainty of her own guilt. She could not work, and when Graham came in he looked across at her inquiringly. 'Is there anything the matter, Susan?' he asked. 'You look as if you've had a shock. It isn't your father -?' She shook her head, moistening her dry lips before she spoke. 'It's—this.' She picked up the wool with fingers that trembled. 'I told you half an hour ago that I knew nothing about it. Well, that just wasn't true.' He looked at her, unbelieving, the relief which her former confession had made still in his eyes. Susan rose to her feet, holding on to the edge of the desk to steady herself. 'In the first place,' she began desperately, 'no one would have known about your process if I hadn't told—one of the Hoylands its purpose.' She could not name Lena as the likely culprit in case Graham was in love with Lena, and it could not matter now if he thought she had carried the information to Roger. One way or another, nothing seemed to matter. It seemed as if she were standing in a grey void with the world revolving far beyond her, the cold fury in a man's blue eyes holding her there until he sealed her fate with his scathing denunciation. Graham did not speak, however. He stood quite still with an expression on his face which frightened her by the stern intensity of its purpose, and in that moment the full extent of her love for him reached the surface. It wasn't only a job she had lost, or trust, or the chance to be part of Danely's again, but the very essence of

life itself. Graham Courage had been in love with her, and now he would despise her with all his heart. Memory flooded back, cruel in its clarity, and she was back in Paris on the bridge across the Seine with Graham's arms about her and his lips hard and demanding on her own. 'Love was never a respecter of persons. It may come to you, Susan, one day, but you won't admit it...' She was ready to admit it now—when it was too late! She knew that Graham would never have kissed her like that if he had not been in love with her, but it would all be changed for him now. There would be only anger left, and contempt for her part in the affair of the wool. Graham's anger was, indeed, terrible. He put her aside almost roughly on his way to the door and strode down the wooden stairs with the clatter of the looms in the mill below beating a mad tattoo in his brain, not waiting to take the longer way by the inside balcony, but vaulting over the wooden balustrade and dropping several feet into the concrete yard below where the waste wool was stored before it was collected for transport. He was driven by a single purpose and he took the shortest way to it. Never a man who beat about the bush, he drove determinedly across the dale to the Hoyland mill. He had never been farther than Peverils before, but the mill was little more than a mile beyond the house and he reached it swiftly. His grim mouth and drawn brows did not relax as the square bulk of the mill came into sight, and he sought out Ben Hoyland without hesitation.

The owner of Peverils was alone in his sumptuous office on the ground floor, but Graham looked about him to make absolutely sure. 'Are we likely to be disturbed?' he demanded. Hoyland had risen to his feet. He was a broad, fleshy man, and his florid face changed to a deep puce colour as he confronted his visitor, his small green eyes watchful as Graham came towards him across the carpeted floor. 'Look here, Courage,' he blustered, 'you can't burst into my private sanctum like this without announcing yourself. We don't do things like that in England -' Graham silenced him with a contemptuous scowl. 'If I thought you were a good representative of this country I wouldn't remain in it longer than it would take me to book my passage elsewhere,' he said scathingly. 'I hadn't time to announce myself, Hoyland, and I've an idea that I might not have seen you if I had.' He tossed the skein of wool on to the desk between them. 'I've come about this!' The older man's colour changed, receding slowly until his face was a dirty grey, but he was still prepared to avoid the issue. 'My wool!' he exclaimed. 'Might I ask you where you got it?' 'That isn't important,' Graham returned acidly. 'Might I ask you where you got the formula?' Ben's eyes shifted. It was disconcerting, to say the least of it, to be cross-examined in this way, as if the judgement was already a foregone conclusion.

'I had it offered to me,' he said, 'and naturally, I took it up.' Graham stepped nearer. For a moment there was a look of hesitation in his manner and he could not bring himself to ask who had made the offer. Hoyland could so easily have told him that it had come through Susan. 'You took it up,' he repeated, 'knowing it wasn't yours to take. That's the truth, isn't it? You knew where it came from all right, you knew that it was my idea and that I was already working on it, but you skimped the process and rushed it on to the market in advance of me. Clever, Mr Hoyland, but not quite clever enough for me. You made a slight oversight which, apparently, you haven't had time to check up on.' 'Look here, Courage -' 'If you'd gone into this thing thoroughly,' Graham went on disregarding the interruption, 'you would have discovered that I took out a patent for my process before I left Australia. What you have there is nothing new.' He glanced contemptuously at the slim coil of wool on the polished surface of the desk. 'It's only a copy, and an inferior copy at that.' Ben's fists were clenched and his throat was working spasmodically. 'Damn you!' he cried. 'You can't prove any of this!' 'Can't I?' Graham's voice was ice-cold in comparison with the older man's blustering rage. 'Let me disillusion you, Mr Hoyland. My process was registered and the men who have been working on it since the autumn are all reliable dalesmen, not easily carried away by bribes or threats of intimidation. They would bear witness for me without the slightest hesitation. You see, Hoyland, they

understand about wool. They know what they've been doing up at Danely's since I went there.' Ben Hoyland sank back into his chair. He looked like a deflated balloon and little patches of sweat stood out on his brow and along the line of his upper lip. 'What are you going to do?' he asked. Graham's mouth tightened. 'I'm going to give you a chance to back out of this;' he said. 'Withdraw your advertising. Take this off the sales lists at once.' He flicked the offending wool with an impatient finger. 'It isn't worthy of Colourdale in its present condition, to say the least of it.' 'I'm damned if I will!' There was an ugly gleam in Ben Hoyland's eyes now and his heavy fist came down hard against the desk. 'Do what you can, Courage. Do your worst and I'll defy you! You'll have a job proving what you've just said. I'm established here. I was in wool before you were born!' Graham smiled grimly. 'So I've heard,' he said. 'But quite apart from that, the rules still exist, Hoyland. This whole affair would stink in a court of law, and you know it!' Ben got up from his chair, moistening his dry lips. 'You wouldn't go that far,' he said harshly. 'You wouldn't dare. You'd take some sort of compensation if I offered it -' He got no further. Graham's fury lashed out at him.

'You're worse than I thought,' he said. 'This dale could do without you, Hoyland, pretty well.' His hands were clenched, as if it was only the fact of his adversary's age which kept him from using them to telling effect. "I didn't come here to be bribed or insulted. I came to get at the truth, and now that I've done that there's only one answer. Colourdale just isn't big enough for you and me.' 'What's your suggestion?' Ben asked with a sudden new wariness in his eyes as he fingered his gaudy necktie. 'You wouldn't be thinking of turning me out, lock, stock and barrel, would you?' It was a full minute before Graham managed to say evenly: 'A man might conceivably want to retire at your age, Hoyland. He might want to pass the remainder of his days somewhere beside the sea, shall we say?' Ben hesitated. It was months since he had first realised that Hoyland's was not paying its way, that money which should have gone back into the mill had been frittered away elsewhere, and his keen brain grasped at the possibilities in the present situation with ascertain evil intent. A mill like Hoyland's might prove too much for a man, eating into his capital, which was not unlimited, he supposed, even when it came from Australia. 'What would become of the mill?' he asked slowly. 'You can turn it over to your son,' Graham said, 'or, if you would prefer the money, I'll offer you a fair price for it.' 'Because it was once Courage land?' Ben gibed. 'You can put that construction on it if you like,' Graham told him. 'Whatever happens, your son could take over the management of the mill and go on living in the house.'

Ben glanced craftily at him. 'Who are you providing for?' he asked. 'My lad—or Susan Danely?' Graham had not been prepared for such a crude shaft and it found its mark without difficulty. 'If you're sure that your son is going to marry Susan,' he said, 'then I suppose I'm providing for her, but that hardly comes into the matter at this stage. This is between you and me, Hoyland. I'll give you a week to consider your answer. In the meantime you can cancel that process of yours and wait till the genuine article hits Colourdale. You're bound to notice the difference, but it takes time to market quality.' He did not give the older man an opportunity of answering as he swung out through the doorway, noting almost subconsciously the scarcity of raw material in the mill yard as he passed through it. He would not be getting any bargain if he bought Hoyland's. Of that he was quite sure, but money would put it on its feet again and Roger Hoyland's future—and Susan's—would be assured. He smiled grimly at the thought.

CHAPTER ELEVEN 'SUSAN,' Paul asked, putting his head round the sitting-room door at Windyridge, 'are you still desperately keen about that showing of the old man's pictures?' Susan looked up from her mending, some of the unhappiness going out of her eyes at his words. 'You know I am. The only thing is that we've sold so many paintings now that he'll hardly be able to catch up. There may not be enough for a show for some time.' Paul dismissed her objection in a few words. 'That's a mere detail,' he said. 'All we do is borrow back! The owners of the paintings he's already sold will be willing to loan them for an occasion like that, I'm quite sure.' Susan wondered if Paul knew that Graham had bought most of them or if he was merely being optimistic to please her. 'Anyway,' she pointed out, 'there's still the burning question of money.' Paul did not appear to consider that insurmountable barrier. 'The spring's the time!' he mused. 'The spring attendances are always bigger. People become jaded by the autumn, but spring brings out the best in everybody!' He was completely buoyant these days, Susan thought, the old Paul, with no dark inhibitions hedging him round now that he led a full and rewarding life at Crofts.

'Well,' she concluded reluctantly, 'it will have to be next spring. 'We've got to find the money first, and I'm giving up my job at Danely's.' 'You're what?' he asked, astounded. 'I—can't go on working at the mill, Paul.' She averted her eyes from his searching gaze. 'I—something has happened which makes that impossible now.' 'Has Gray asked you to marry him?' The question stabbed deep into her heart and her hands clenched hard by her side. 'No.' 'Then what on earth -? I thought you were happy down there, pulling your weight for Danely's.' 'I am—I was.' 'But now you're not?' He looked genuinely perplexed, unable to fathom anything quite so complicated as the working of a woman's mind. 'It doesn't seem possible to me that people could change about a thing like that in five minutes,' he observed. 'Gray depended on you at one time.' 'And he can't now. That's the crux of the matter,' Susan told him miserably. 'I can't tell you—just what happened, Paul, so shall we talk about something else? Father's pictures, for instance. I don't want to seem as if I'm pouring cold water over your enthusiasm, but the fact remains that these showings are expensive.' He studied her musingly.

'What would you say if I told you that I knew someone who would be willing to put up the money?' he asked. She drew a long, quivering breath. 'I didn't know you were acquainted with—Santa Claus!' she said. 'I had a word with him last Christmas! He's all for helping a worthy cause!' 'If only we could do it—without a Santa Claus!' Susan sighed. 'Dad won't be disappointed if nothing comes of all our plans, but you can see what it would mean to him if we could have the exhibition.' 'Then why shouldn't we let—an interested outsider help?' Paul demanded. 'People do these things. People with money. They subsidise all sorts of things, and sometimes they even get their money back with interest.' 'If we could only be sure of that -' She was too proud to accept help without the prospect of being able to pay their patron back one hundred per cent. 'I thought you had absolute faith in Dad's pictures,' Paul challenged. 'I have! Really I have, but it's just—not being sure about what will happen that makes me hesitate.' 'Susan,' he said, coming to stand beside her, 'you've changed a lot. At one time you would have looked on all this as a tremendous adventure and taken any risk, but now you seem to have lost all your old gaiety. Surely you would be ready to take a chance?'

'So long as we wouldn't be in anyone's debt indefinitely,' she agreed reluctantly. 'Who is this friend, Paul? I had no idea you knew any wealthy patrons of the arts.' 'I don't think I'd call this friend of mine a patron of the arts, exactly,' Paul returned whimsically, 'but he does know what he's doing. He also knows the genuine article when he sees it, apparently. He knew at a glance how much my stuff was worth, anyway, and he advised me to chuck it.' 'You met him in Paris?' Susan asked. Paul nodded. 'Yes, I met him in Paris.' 'And now he's in England?' 'Yes.' 'You really mean you're quite sure, Paul, he won't go back on his word?' 'He's not that sort of person.' 'Has he made the promise?' Her eyes were shining with excited anticipation. 'Has he actually offered to sponsor the show?' 'More or less. It appears to be up to us to accept or refuse.' 'Refuse? How could we, when it means so much to Dad!' 'Then I take it that it's settled? We most graciously accept!' Paul's voice was slightly dry, but Susan was too happy to notice the sarcasm.

'Do you think we should mention it to Dad—so long beforehand?' she asked. 'I've never known happiness kill a man!' She put aside her mending and pressed her palms against her flushed cheeks. 'Paul,' she cried, 'it's so wonderful I can't quite believe it's true! It will be fulfilment for him, the crowning achievement of his art!' She paused, remembering suddenly that it might also have been her brother's ambition at one time. 'You're happy here, aren't you?' she asked. 'You don't ever regret—coming home?' He met her eyes steadily. 'Not now,' he said quietly. She went to tell her father the good news, finding him with a couple of newly-born Iambs in one of the pens at the back of the house. 'They're a bonny pair!' he said, holding them up for her inspection. 'They'd make a fine picture.' She helped him up from his knees and handed him his walking stick. 'You and your pictures!' she laughed. 'Do you never think of anything else?' 'A lot!' He looked at her shrewdly. 'I've been thinking for instance, that I haven't seen that smile of yours so often lately, Sue! It's

maybe that you're too busy at the mill, but there was a time when you laughed oftener.' She looked away from his probing eyes, fearing that he might see more deeply than she wished. 'I've been trying to keep a secret,' she said when she could trust her voice. 'But now we've decided to let you into it!' 'Are you asking me to make a guess?' His smile was eager and protective as he watched her attending to the lambs. 'For if it has anything to do with you and young Mr Courage I think I could put a name to it easily enough!' Susan bit her lip. How long would it be, she wondered, before she could endure these well-intentioned jests without their piercing her heart like a sword? 'It hasn't anything to do with Gray,' she said. 'It's about your pictures. Paul knows someone who has offered to help,' she rushed on to cover her confusion and the initial disappointment in his eyes. 'I think this person must have seen a sample of your work, but anyway he's willing to rent the necessary gallery and put up the capital for the show. It would be in London, I suppose. Think of it, Dad!' she added, hugging him impulsively. 'Just think of it!' She saw him smile, and the old light of eagerness came into his eyes, making nothing of age or time or the passing years. 'But how would we pay this man back—this friend of Paul's who's so generous?' 'You'd sell more pictures! These shows always bring results, and people don't put them on unless they're pretty sure they're going to pay a dividend.'

'I don't want to get into any debt,' he cautioned, not yet able to accept the proposition. 'Who would go to see about it?' 'Paul, I suppose.' She could not grudge her brother his part in it. 'He knows about these things and it's his friend who's putting up the money. He's someone Paul met in Paris.' 'A Frenchman? Well, I suppose they know what they're about.' He nodded his white head and laughed outright. 'After all these years,' he said, 'who would believe it!' Susan felt herself in duty bound to pass on the news to Graham. She had also to tell him that she could no longer work at Danely's, but perhaps he would save her the effort by dismissing her! Her heart sank lower and lower as she made her way to the mill, perhaps for the last time. It had all become so familiar again, the pattern of her life woven into the present with the same bright threads that had coloured it in the past. She heard the click of the looms and the tap of her heels on the stone of the balcony as she walked above them, and the familiar creak of the office door when she had negotiated the awkward outside staircase, and it seemed that they had become sounds in a far-away dream. Graham had reached the office before her. Sometimes she wondered if he had taken to working there all night recently. He looked tired this morning, with heavy lines about his mouth and eyes. 'There's something I have to ask you,' she said. He got to his feet, standing stiffly behind the desk. 'What is it, Susan?'

'It's—about my father's pictures.' She thought that there was relief in his eyes, but could not be sure. 'Paul has found someone to give them a showing in London, some Frenchman he met in Paris. Seemingly it's done quite often by people who have the money to spare. Paul says it could be an investment of sorts, and I don't suppose these people risk their money unless they're fairly sure that the show will bring results. What I—did want to ask was— would you loan the paintings you've already bought?' He smiled for the first time. 'Need you have asked?' How fond he was of her father, Susan thought. 'I know you asked me to keep your purchases a secret for the time being,' she rushed on, 'but it would mean a lot to us if we could include the Colourdale watercolours. Dad's at his best on his home ground.' 'If Paul lets me know when he wants them, I'll have them packed and sent off to London.' The personal nature of her request had done nothing to break down the barrier between them, she realised, wondering if she had expected it to do so. 'There's something else,' she said, feeling that it would be useless to spare herself the agony of her next request, even for half an hour. 'I—want to hand in my resignation,' He did not look surprised, and she could not tell what he was thinking. Only the small pulse beating near his temple gave any indication of tension, and she remembered how angry he had been when he had left her the day before.

'You're sure about this, Susan?' he asked grimly. 'You're sure you're doing the right thing?' She tried to look at him without betraying herself. 'Quite sure,' she said. 'Then there's no more to be said.' He looked down at the desk, as if dismissing her, and Susan lifted her notebook and pencil from the table beside the window ready to take his dictation. There would be a week of this sort of thing, working her notice and seeing Graham, day by day. She did not know how long she would be able to endure it, but just now she felt empty and spent with emotion so that she could not even think ahead. Beth came to the office during lunch hour that day. She had borrowed her brother's car for a morning's shopping in Sheffield and had stopped to pick him up on her way home. 'Gray,' she asked anxiously, when she was sure that Susan had gone, 'what happened? Has Ben Hoyland decided to leave the dale?' They had discussed it all the previous evening when Beth had found him alone in the library after his visit to Peverils. He pushed a letter across his desk. 'That came this morning,' he said. It was written in Ben Hoyland's sprawling hand and couched in terms as blustering as Ben's habitual address, but it admitted the

fact that the processed wool had been manufactured from a Danely formula, which was surprising, to say the least of it. 'Isn't this all—rather indiscreet?' Beth asked. 'Putting it in black and white, I mean.' 'Hoyland will have some reason for that,' he said. 'Read on.' ' "Considering the above mistake on my part",' Beth read aloud,' "I am now willing to agree to your proposition about Hoyland's and will sell out to you at the figure you proposed." ' She drew in a deep breath. 'He's even signed it with a flourish! Gray, do you think there can be some sort of catch in it? I don't trust that man!' 'Neither do I, but I don't think there's a catch, apart from the fact that he thinks it's going to be worth his while to leave a sinking ship.' 'Then have we been wise to buy?' He smiled at her concern for him. 'Not very. The advantages would appear to be all on the Hoyland side, but that's beside the point.' He put the letter safely away in the drawer of his desk. 'He's insured the future for himself quite nicely, I think.' 'And what about Lena and Roger?' Beth said uneasily. 'Lena? She'll probably go with him. She's that type.' If Beth had ever had any doubt about his feelings for Lena, she was convinced now that Graham only felt sorry for Ben Hoyland's daughter. 'Roger will stay on at Peverils as manager of the mill.'

She gazed at him incredulously for a moment, and then her eyes softened. 'You're doing this for Susan,' she said, 'so that she'll always be able to stay in Colourdale when she marries Roger Hoyland!' He did not answer her. Presumably he considered that she did not expect an answer. 'How soon are you going to marry Paul?' he asked instead, leading her towards the door with a hand under her elbow. Beth flushed scarlet. 'He'll never ask me!' she cried. 'I know he won't. He's far too proud. You see,' she added despairingly, 'he thinks he has nothing to offer me.' 'Couldn't you disillusion him on that score?' he asked, putting an affectionate arm about her waist. 'How could I! I'm dealing with a man and a proud, sensitive Danely into the bargain!' Beth caught her lower lip between her strong white teeth. 'Oh, Gray, you and I will be living at Fourstones till we're old and bent and embittered, if we're not careful!' she declared. He opened the car door for her and went round the bonnet to get in behind the wheel. As they drove away, he said: 'When you're safely married to Paul I might even think of going back to Queensland or some other part of Australia.' The bombshell jerked Beth upright in her seat.

'Gray, you couldn't! It would kill Mother,' she declared. 'I'm not suggesting that she should go back with me,' he said. 'She'd be happy here with you, Bee.' Beth refrained from arguing the point, but she felt that it was all wrong, and when she saw Susan again she picked up the courage to tell her so. 'Gray's talking of going back to Australia,' she said, kicking passionately at a clump of spent heather. 'We've got to stop him, Susan, somehow!' Susan felt as if the world had gone dark. She seemed to be groping blindly for an answer, avoiding the true significance of Beth's words, and then she thought that she understood. Graham preferred the old, free life that Australia still offered. He was going back because Colourdale had nothing to give him. He might even be going back to someone he had once loved there. 'How can we interfere, Beth?' she said, and her voice sounded harsh because it had come to near to breaking point. 'Gray is old enough to know his own mind.' Which was not quite the satisfactory answer Beth Courage had expected.

CHAPTER TWELVE Two DAYS later Roger Hoyland came to Danely's. He drove up in the shooting brake, pulling into the yard at an angle, and jumped out almost before he had switched off the engine. It was evident that he was in some hurry. Susan, standing at the head of the outside stairway leading from the offices, saw him without being observed. It was amazing how seldom people remembered about the stairs above their heads which led, incongruously, back on to the stone balcony above the looms. The private offices at Danely's had been built long after the mill itself, when paper work had increased to such an extent that they had become an important and necessary part of the business, and they still looked the afterthought that they had undoubtedly been. They clung on to the main building like a swallow's nest, high under the eaves, and were approached by a treacherous wooden stair. Graham had been talking about renewing it ever since he had come to Danely's, covering it in and making it part of the mill interior, but Susan supposed all that would go by the board now. Idly she watched Roger disappear within the building on the ground floor, wondering what could have brought him to Danely's at closing time like this, and then, to her surprise, she passed him at the end of the balcony. He was going to see Gray! 'Hullo!' he greeted her without much enthusiasm. 'Still one of the Courage employees, Sue?' She smiled faintly. 'For another couple of days!'

He hesitated, as if he would question her about something, and then he walked on. 'Better not wait,' he advised. 'I'm going to have a word with Courage and I don't know how long I shall be.' There was something in his expression which she did not like, questioning it instinctively as she thought of Graham, but she could not bar Roger's way or suggest that he might change his mind. Graham might even have asked him to come. Roger Hoyland's visit to Graham was entirely unrequested, however, and Graham's quick frown when he looked up from his desk and recognised his visitor testified to the fact. 'Hullo, Hoyland,' he said coldly. 'What can I do for you?' Roger did not return the greeting. He came straight towards the desk and leaned across it. 'What right have you to force my father to sell his mill?' he demanded without preliminary. Graham looked back at him steadily. 'Your father was not forced to sell,' he said. 'That was entirely his own decision. He had another alternative.' 'To leave it to me, I suppose?' Roger's tone was sarcastic. 'Exactly.' Roger stared at him. 'You don't expect me to believe that, do you?'

'No.' 'Then I'll tell you why I've come!' Roger's expression was suddenly ugly. 'I want that letter my father wrote to you two days ago. Courage. Now that you've forced him to sell out to you, I'm damned if I'm going to let you keep a written confession of our guilt to hold over my head whenever you like to use it in the future!' Hs words fell into a heavy silence and Graham took a quick step towards him. 'Get out!' he said. 'I'll give you exactly five seconds to get down those stairs.' Roger stood his ground. 'You think I took your precious formula, don't you?' he jeered. 'Well, you might be wrong about that, you know. There's a Hoyland on the distaff side who might have been your willing slave if you'd treated her more kindly, but that's something your arrogant type wouldn't see!' 'Lena!' Graham had been unable to hide his surprise and Roger laughed derisively. 'You gave her a chance, didn't you? But you underestimated my dear sister! When she found herself rejected she turned back to her first love and took your formula to my father. I suppose the poor demented fool thought she'd win the old man's affection that way! Just to win his notice would have been enough for Lena, but it didn't even do that for her. She'll be going into exile with him as

his housekeeper, just as she's always been, and I can't say I'm sorry for her. Lena never did show any guts about the way she lived.' Graham turned his back on him. 'I can't say I admire you for the confession, Hoyland,' he said, 'though it clears up a good many things. I still mean what I said five minutes ago. Get out!' Roger went without further demur, but his expression was ugly as he turned the brake round in the yard and he made no effort to hide the blackness of his thoughts. He drove up the hill road towards Windyridge, overtaking Susan on her way there. 'I didn't wait for a lift when you said not to,' Susan told him, wondering what had taken him to the mill. 'I thought you were going to be at Danely's for some time.' 'I was there long enough,' he said darkly. 'It doesn't take a lifetime to sum up a man like Graham Courage.' Susan stiffened. 'I expect you've gathered that,' he went on, openly vindictive now. 'Or has he bemused you in the same way as Lena, making love to you and throwing you aside when he saw that the prize wasn't big enough?' Susan turned at the gate to face him. 'You're talking rubbish!' she declared. 'Gray was never in love with Lena, and even if he had been it would never have been for an ulterior motive.'

'You think not?' His eyes were questioning on her flushed face. 'Courage has only one end in view, to own the entire dale, in time, and he's more than half-way to doing that now. He's stepping in at the right moment when we've either got to sell Hoyland's or face a pretty lean time. He's getting Hoyland's the way he got Danely's, and you know how you feel about that!' Susan drew in a deep breath. 'I don't feel the same way about Danely's now, Roger,' she confessed. 'Graham has done so much for the dale, and I see now how petty and childish my first reactions were. He's the sort of person Colourdale needs, strong and dependable, and young and determined enough to carry his plans through.' He glared down at her, not quite believing what he had heard. 'You're championing the fellow!' he exclaimed incredulously. 'I wouldn't be surprised if you told me next that you were in love with him!' Susan looked away. 'That wouldn't do me any good,' she said. 'Look here, Sue,' he pleaded, shedding some of his anger, 'you know I've asked you to marry me before, but this is really serious now. I haven't Hoyland's to offer you any more—Mr Graham Courage has seen to that!—but there'll be some money left from the sale of the mill, even after the old man has paid his debts, and we could make out together. I could find some sort of job in Manchester— or London, if you'd like that better -' She silenced him with a hand on his arm, the pressure of her fingers gentle against suddenly tensed muscles.

'Roger, I couldn't,' she said unsteadily. 'I know quite definitely now, and I could never leave the dale.' He clutched at his one remaining hope of winning her. 'If I stayed in the dale, then? If I took the job Courage offered me at Hoyand's -?' He had not meant to tell her about Graham's offer, but she had left him no alternative. Susan looked up, her eyes level on his. 'So Gray did offer something?' she said. 'What was it, Roger? Peverils and the management of the mill?' 'You seem to know him fairly well,' he sneered. 'What a comedown for a Hoyland, managing a mill he once hoped to own! It's the sort of situation a man like Courage would revel in.' 'You don't know how wrong you are!' Susan cried. 'Graham's not like that. He would never hold on to a grudge.' Not as I did once, she thought, meeting him with bitterness and resentment when he first came to the dale. 'Maybe not,' Roger returned scathingly, 'but he'd hold on to other things that might serve his purpose better. He's the ruthless sort who likes to have his man where he wants him, and he'd use any lever to gain his own ends.' He was still smarting under Graham's curt dismissal, still sure that his father's letter was being kept at Danely's for future reference. It was the sort of trick Roger himself might have stooped to and he considered it the more despicable in another in consequence. Susan's refusal to marry him added to his hatred and envy of Graham because he recognised instinctively that it had something

to do with the other man. If Susan wasn't exactly in love with Courage, at least her growing apathy towards himself had dated from the older man's arrival at Fourstones, and admiration was so often the forerunner of love! Susan turned from the gate without asking him in. 'Sue,' he pleaded, 'this can't possibly be the end between us.' She could feel pity for him now, but she could not give him what he wanted. 'I'm sorry, Roger,' she said again. 'I know so well that it wouldn't work. Marriage—isn't any use without love to back it up.' She fled towards the house, leaving him to look after her with stony hatred in his heart, hatred of his father and Lena who had cheated to set Hoyland's on its feet again, hatred of Susan who had turned down his offer of marriage, but, above all, hatred of Graham Courage who seemed to be the root cause of his present unenviable position. When he reached Peverils Lena was there alone, looking more downcast than he had ever seen her. Her poor thwarted nature had been driven in upon itself, and he realised some of the desperate desire she had known since childhood to be recognised and praised by her father. Well, he mused, it had stood her in little stead. She had precipitated them into this mess by her theft of the formula which his father had not scrupled to use, and she couldn't expect her brother's sympathy. Roger's pity was all for himself. He saw himself cheated of his inheritance through some shabby trick of fate and he longed to strike back.

If only his father hadn't been such a fool, putting it all in black and white in that letter to Courage! They might have been able to bluff their way out of the wool situation and a new overdraft at the bank might have tided them over the next few months. Roger was not prepared to look further than that. He had a grievance and he nursed it as zealously as Lena had ever done. There might yet be some way to get even with Graham Courage, to settle more than one outstanding score. His father did not help his mood by seeming indifferent to the fate of their property. 'The whole thing's top-heavy,' Ben growled. 'You never pulled your weight in the mill and it isn't big enough to carry passengers. If you'd dug your toes in and hadn't spent the brass as hard as I earned it, things might have been a lot different.' The remark was hardly justified and Roger knew it. Ben had never really considered them and his generosity with money had been largely to satisfy his own ego. A show of affluence had always pleased him and it raised his prestige in the dale. He had been quite convinced about that. Money, he firmly believed, was the only power, and it had been a great shock to him to find himself virtually without it. Roger knew all these things about his father and he also knew that Ben considered he had committed a foolish blunder in writing that letter to Graham. Roger had tried to retrieve it by a direct approach to Graham and had not been successful, so there was only one other way for it. He knew enough about the working of Danely's to lay his plans carefully, and when he walked down across the moor towards the mill the following evening there was only the caretaker to watch

out for at the front of the building. Old Ezra went his rounds at seven o'clock and returned to the main office to make himself a cup of tea, and from then onwards he remained there and the back premises would be deserted. Roger approached the private offices from the back, where they lay in the shadow of the mill, crossing the yard where the waste wool lay stacked ready for disposal. In less than an hour the moon would come up, but the angle of the hill would throw a shadow over the yard. He felt safe and comparatively confident. What he was to do was entirely justified. He had given Graham Courage a chance to return the letter honestly and he had refused, and it did not occur to Roger that his present purpose was strictly dishonest. He was going to find his father's letter and destroy it. He broke into the private offices by climbing the outside stair, swinging himself upwards to the square platform at its foot by a conveniently placed drainpipe, and mounting the wooden steps cautiously. The stout wooden door at the top presented a trickier problem, but he decided on one bold throw. Putting his shoulder against it, he stepped back and thrust his full weight at the lock. Once, twice, 'and again a third time he tried before it yielded with a splintering of wood and a crash which he hoped had been mercifully drowned by the sound of a car's engine taking the moor road at speed. He stood listening for the sound of footsteps for a minute, heaving a sigh of relief when they did not come, and then he walked cautiously into Susan's office and through it to the half-open door of Graham's private sanctum. Only one of the desk drawers was locked and he looked through the others first, using a pocket torch to shed light on the task, but without result.

There still remained the locked drawer. Of course, a man like Graham Courage would take good care of a letter that held so much! He bent to his task, inserting the, strong blade of his pocket knife into the crack of the drawer to lever it open. 'Can I be of any assistance?' The main lights were switched on and Graham stood there in the doorway confronting him with something like amusement in his eyes. Fear and a sickly premonition of disaster rose in Roger as he met the older man's gaze. He had lit a cigarette to steady his nerves before he had made his attempt on the locked drawer and now it trembled between his fingers. He had been a fool, he acknowledged, and Courage held the upper hand once more. Blind fury obliterated everything for a moment and he lunged forward, whether in an attempt at escape or to attack his enemy it was difficult to see, and Graham fended him off with a sudden hard tightening of the mouth. 'Hoyland, don't be a fool -' Roger closed in on him and they lurched through the door and across Susan's office to the outside platform at the head of the stairs, the cigarette falling from Roger's hand and rolling towards the balustrade. It lay there smouldering for a moment before it rolled off the platform and fell several feet into a pile of waste in the yard below. Neither of the men on the stairway saw it. In the darkness as the heavy office door swung to behind them they closed with each other, a milling mass of arms and legs from which came an occasional breathless grunt as a telling blow went home. The darkness seemed doubly accentuated by their silent struggle for supremacy and they were very evenly matched. They swayed and

lunged at each other between the main wall and the wooden rail of the staircase until, suddenly, in the darkness, one of them caught his foot in something and fell against the balustrade. Madly, blindly, the other lashed out and a heavy body went crashing through the rail to fall twenty feet to the concrete beneath. In that moment the moon came out, rising full and round above the shoulder of the hill. It caught the end of the mill building in a noose of light and picked up the dark figure of Roger Hoyland leaning back against the wall above the broken stairway. It also picked out two figures higher up on the moor road walking towards the mill from the direction of Windyridge. Susan and her brother had come out with Taffy for his evening walk. Paul strode beside her, his hands thrust into his pockets and his head up in a new gesture of confidence. 'I guess it's thanks to Graham that I came back and rediscovered all this,' he said, looking about him at the moon-blanched hills. 'If he hadn't brought me face to face with the blunt truth all these weeks ago in Paris I might have been sweeping the boulevards by now!' 'Surely you would have come home?' Susan said. 'I'm not belittling what Gray did for you—I never could do that—but you might have known that we would understand.' 'I guess it was a matter of pride,' he admitted, 'but once I had a job to come back to things were different.' Evidently he could speak about it all quite frankly now. 'Sue,' he added tentatively, 'would you think that—after a bit, when I've had time to save something—a girl like Beth Courage might want to marry me?' Susan smiled in the moonlight.

'Why not, Paul?' she said. 'And I don't think you should wait for years before you ask her, either!' They had reached the junction of the moor path and the white ribbon of the road leading down into the dale, and Danely's lay in the shadows beneath them in one corner of the old, square building picked out in the moonlight. Susan looked on the familiar scene with a tremor at her lips, but suddenly she was grasping Paul's arm in a grip that hurt. 'Look!' she cried. 'Look! There's something wrong. Something has happened at Danely's -' He followed the direction of her gaze and saw the first leap of flame shooting up in the darkness. It illuminated the shadowed side of the mill, throwing the wooden staircase into strong relief against the grey stone of the main building, and from that point onwards there was no question of what they should do. 'Run!' Susan cried. 'Run! The mill's on fire!' Her own trembling limbs would scarcely obey her injunction to her brother, but she forced them to carry her across the uneven gorse on the direct way to the mill. Curiously enough, it was not Danely's of which she thought most, it was of Graham, of the effort he had put into the job he had done and all it would mean to him to see it destroyed. Instinctively, it seemed, she chose the way to the back of the mill while Paul ran ahead of her to the main gates. She was too breathless and shaken to call out to him, and he had probably gone to raise the alarm. She reached the sheds, climbing the low fence separating them from the moor and plunging down in the darkness towards the mill

itself. It was rough and difficult going, but she knew the way from many a childhood foray in the mill yard, and she did not pull up till she stumbled across something lying in her path. In the darkness she made out a man's figure huddled at the edge of a pile of waste with a fallen beam from the broken stair pinning it down. Her limbs froze in horror at something vaguely familiar about the prone shape and she was down on her knees in an instant. 'Gray!' she breathed. 'Gray -' He's dead, she thought in wild panic. He's dead! But in the next instant Susan who had challenged fate on more than one occasion was pulling frantically at the imprisoning beam until her hands bled in a desperate effort to free him before the whole staircase gave way and trapped them both. Graham opened his eyes, groaning a little as he tried to turn on to his side, and the flickering orange light behind them danced on his face as he made a futile effort to rise. 'Danely's!' he gasped, turning and recognising her. 'Susan—the mill -!' She took no notice of the leaping flames. Danely's did not matter. Nothing mattered except Gray and the need to save his life. In the fantastic orange glow her eyes glittered with that one determined purpose and she gritted her teeth against the possibility of failure. 'I've got to get you free,' she panted. 'Danely's doesn't matter, Gray. Nothing matters -' She seemed to be repeating a formula over and over in her mind, words that awakened an echo deep in her heart, Gray's words reaching across some great stillness. '... until something matters to you more than Danely's.'

He moved as if to defend her. 'Get back!' he warned when he saw the firelight playing on the broken stair. 'For heaven's sake, Susan, get back while there's still time!' She would not listen to him. He was powerless, pinned there under the heavy beam, and she began to tear at it with her hands again, wondering' whether his leg was broken and not daring to look. 'Graham! Graham, my darling -!• Don't move!' she implored. 'Don't move or we'll both be trapped.' She was almost sobbing now, exhausted by her effort with the heavy beam and the precipitate journey across the moor, and every bone and muscle in her body ached as if she had been beaten. She could hear the flames crackling behind them and it seemed an eternity since she had watched Paul racing for the main door. 'The fire!' Graham gasped. 'Get back and report it, Susan. Leave me here. I'll be all right.' She had moved the beam, inch by resisting inch, and now she had him in her arms, pressing his head against her, drawing him clear. She neither saw nor cared about the fire, but the effort to drag him to the bank at the far side of the yard all but exhausted her. When she got him there the sense of elation in her heart was almost more than she could bear. He was safe! Nothing could happen to him now! Paul's voice sounded above her head like a vague echo from some fading dream. 'You all right, Sue? Can you hang on till we get the extinguishers going?'

'Yes.' She pushed him from her. 'Get back to the mill -' She took off her coat and put it under Gray's head, and for a moment his eyes were full upon her. 'It's all right,' she said, 'about Danely's -' He seemed to smile just before he slipped into unconsciousness and she brought an armful of waste from beyond the fire to cover him. The night wind blew chill and icy against her bare throat and uncovered arms, but she did not feel cold. She left the extinguishing of the fire to Paul and old Ezra and ran to the main office to telephone to the village. 'Dr Bryn?' she asked when she finally got through. 'Can you come to Danely's at once?' She was amazed at the calmness of her own voice while her heart thumped so hard in the stillness. 'There's been an accident. It's Mr Courage. He seems to have fallen from the staircase in the yard.' Her voice trailed off and no further words of explanation would come. She heard the doctor's answer as if it came from some immeasurable distance, but she knew that he had assured her that he would be at the mill 'in next to no time.' She did not think that Graham was going to die, nor did she tell herself that he might be seriously injured, crippled perhaps for life. She felt numbed, but conscious, too, of having achieved something, a kind of victory which love could accept. If it was even the victory over her old bitterness, she believed that it would be enough. When the doctor arrived she was waiting beside the curiously wrapped figure on the ground, and the little Welsh practitioner gave her an encouraging smile.

'I see you've kept him warm. That was the best thing to do.' Susan could see his breath clearly in the frosty air. It came in little white puffs as he bent to his task and she watched him examine Graham from head to foot, the small podgy hands passing lightly and surely over the other man's strong, clean-cut limbs. She could feel the minutes ticking away as fear stabbed at her mind, at last. Why didn't Dr Bryn say something? When his examination was complete he got to his feet. 'How did this happen?' he asked. Nobody seemed to know. The fire had been put out, and Paul and old Ezra were standing awkwardly by Susan's side. 'Looks as if young master were working late,' Ezra suggested, scratching his head. 'Car is still in front of building, but I never saw him come in. Looks like he slipped going up them treacherous stairs. They be covered in frost of a winter's night.' They looked up at the gaping hole in the balustrade. 'Would that account for the fire?' the doctor asked. 'A cigarette falling in among all this waste wool down here?' 'It might have set whole mill alight!' Ezra exclaimed. 'Instead of that, it drew our attention to Graham,' Susan pointed out when she could trust her voice. 'What about him, Dr Bryn? Can he be moved?' The little man nodded, seeing her distress.

'I'll give him a shot of this and then we'll get him home,' he said, producing a hypodermic syringe from his bag. 'He's taken a nasty crack on the head, but there are no bones broken, thank goodness. I'll go over him thoroughly again in the morning, just to make sure,' he promised. Susan hesitated. 'Would you mind very much letting me go to Fourstones ahead of you?' she asked. 'This is going to be rather a shock for his mother.' The doctor nodded his approval. He knew Susan and was even willing to trust her with his car. Graham's own car was larger and would be more suitable for taking him home, anyway. Susan was never quite sure how she managed to drive the distance between the mill and Fourstones without a mishap. Her whole body seemed suddenly shaken by an icy terror which she had not felt in the first moments of the accident. Reaction had claimed her, but she knew that she could not face Hester Courage in such a state. She clenched her hands hard over the steering wheel and willed herself to a state of calm. Beth heard the car and came running out as she pulled up at the front door. 'I thought it was Gray,' she began, and then she broke off, gazing at Susan's white face and blackened hands in astonishment. 'Sue, what is it? Why are you in the doctor's car?' 'It's all right, Beth! I had to get here before the others and this was the quickest way. Gray's had a sight accident. I came to tell your mother before they brought him home so that she wouldn't get too much of a shock.'

The colour drained slowly from Beth's cheeks. 'Are you—telling me the truth?' she demanded. 'Is it— only that?' 'He slipped and fell coming down those dreadful outside stairs,' Susan explained. 'They've always been a danger, and we don't know exactly how it happened, but Dr Bryn seems to think he's had a miraculous escape.' They went into the hall, to the light and warmth that had always been Fourstones. 'Was that Gray, Beth?' Hester Courage called from the direction of the dining-room. 'Dinner is almost ready, dear.' Beth slipped her hands into Susan's, gripping it tightly as they went towards the door. 'It's Susan, Mother,' she said calmly. 'Gray's had a fall at the mill and they've had to send for Dr Bryn, but they're bringing him home as fast as they can. Will you speak to Susan while I see to his room and get a hot-water bottle filled?' Wonderful Beth, Susan thought, meeting it all so calmly, but in the next instant she was assuring Mrs Courage just as calmly that Graham would be all right. 'He's had rather a nasty blow on the head,' she explained, 'and it's knocked him out, but there are no bones broken, the doctor says. Perhaps if he has a day or two in bed he'll be all right again.' The words were a prayer, rising straight from her heart and repeated over and over again as she listened for the returning Jaguar bringing Graham home to Fourstones. When it drew up at

the front door with Paul behind the wheel, she was out in the lighted porch waiting with Hester Courage. Graham opened his eyes for a moment as he was carried past them, and his lips twisted in a smile. 'You'll wait?' Mrs Courage asked, turning to Susan. 'You and Paul? There's so much I have to know about all this.' It took Paul and old Ezra and the doctor to carry Graham up the staircase on the mill stretcher, and Beth and her mother followed anxiously behind. They seemed to have forgotten Susan for the moment. If only I could have done more to help, she thought, standing forlornly in the great hall, but they're his family, his own people, and they have the right. I have no right, no real claim. It's only that I love him ... love him ... love him ... till there's nothing in my world but love ... Paul came down. He was alone. .They stood looking at each other and he said: 'Sue, there's something about all this that I don't like. It doesn't seem—quite above board to me.' 'Above board?' He looked hastily towards the stairs in case they might be overheard. 'When we went through the mill the office light was on—the back one, which I suppose is the one Graham uses. I went up there because I thought that the fire had got that far, and the place looked as if it had been broken into. The lock on the outside door

had been smashed and there were papers and a torch lying on the floor.' Susan's eyes widened. 'Gray could have gone back without his key,' she suggested automatically, knowing that she didn't really think that was what had happened. 'He would never have broken the lock,' Paul pointed out. 'It wouldn't have been all that important to get into the office. Besides, he had his car with him and could have gone back for the keys.' Susan did not know what to think. 'Paul,' she begged, 'don't say anything about this just now. It might only worry Mrs Courage needlessly. Let's leave it till Gray is able to deal with it himself.' 'Which I don't think will be very long,' Paul said as old Ezra came down the stairs, 'He's had a miraculous escape.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN GRAHAM'S recovery took longer than they expected. It was two weeks before he was up and about again and a full month before he went back to the mill. In these days Paul became his constant companion, carrying his orders to Danely's and generally supervising the working of the mill during his absence. In the circumstances, Paul thought, Susan should stay on at the office in order to help. It was a strange thing, but Paul never mentioned the break-in at the office again. The lock was repaired on the assumption that 'the young master' had forced the door, and that was that, but Susan felt that there had been a note of satisfaction in her brother's voice when he had informed her, two days after the accident, that Roger Hoyland had left the dale. 'I never had a great deal of use for Roger, or Lena either, for that matter,' he said. 'She'll be leaving with her father as soon as the sale of the mill goes through.' 'Has—Graham bought Peverils, too?' Susan asked without looking up. 'I'm not quite sure.' There was the barest trace of hesitation in Paul's pleasant voice. 'It's coming on to the market, but I heard today that an offer had already been made for it.' He paused, and then he said quietly: 'I may not be here when it goes. Graham wants me to go to London as soon as he gets back to the office so that we can fix up about Dad's exhibition.' Susan's eyes flew to his.

' "We"? Paul, do you mean that—Gray was your friend all the time—the man you met in Paris who sponsored the arts?' He looked taken aback, and then he smiled: 'Well,' he said, 'I did meet Gray in Paris, didn't I?' 'We owe him so much,' Susan said huskily. 'We can never repay him in all our lifetime.' Paul gathered up the morning mail. 'I don't know about that,' he said. 'It's not so much a question of repayment as one of return. I've often wondered what I could do for Gray, in return.' Susan wondered about that, too, but Paul was luckier than she was. Events had given him the opportunity to do quite a lot for Graham, but there was nothing he wanted her to do for him. He had not even asked to see her. Beth came to the office in search of Paul that afternoon and Susan thought that she looked unhappy, in spite of the fact that her romance with Paul was common property in the dale now. 'Susan,' she exclaimed, 'why are people so difficult? Especially the people one loves most!' 'Because one loves them, I suppose. Other people don't count so much. Can I help?' She thought that the trouble might be over Paul, but Beth had already decided that she could manage Paul.

'It's Gray,' she said. 'He still means to go back to Australia. At least,' she added with averted eyes, 'I feel sure he does.' 'But what about the mill?' Susan asked, her heart contracting with a pain that was surely physical. 'What about all he's done in the dale?' 'He thinks he can leave the running of the mill to Paul,' Beth said, 'but Paul isn't ready for such a heavy responsibility. He's not fit to take over Danely's on his own yet, let alone Hoyland's as well.' She fixed Susan with compelling eyes which were suddenly very like her brother's. 'Someone ought to tell Gray that and not let him make a mess of things by going away.' 'You're sure that he—means to go?' Susan asked heavily. 'As sure as—anything,' Beth told her, not quite meeting her eyes. When she had gone Susan sat very still, so still that it was amazing that she did not hear the footsteps on the stairs or see Graham's shadow when it darkened the doorway. When she looked up he had almost reached her desk. 'Danely's needs you,' she said. 'If you go back to Australia now it will be like running away.' He came round the end of the desk, smiling faintly. 'The old Susan!' he said. 'What should I say in order to meet such a challenge?' He was gazing down at her with that old demanding look in his eyes which she had seen so often, and when she did not—could not—answer him he stopped and drew her to her feet. 'Danely's needs you!' he repeated mockingly. 'Is that all, Susan? Have you forgotten the day of the fire—so soon?'

There was a deeply vibrant note in his voice that stirred an answering madness in her veins and nothing seemed to matter now except the truth. The truth between them, at last! 'If Danely's had gone that night it wouldn't have mattered,' she said. 'It wouldn't matter now—so long as you're safe.' She tossed back her hair in the small, proud gesture he had come to love. 'You once said -' 'Sue!' He had reached out and taken her in his arms, his lips coming down against hers, hard and possessive, silencing the confession she had been about to make. Did it matter? Susan wondered. Did anything matter, when there was this! It was minutes before he released her again. 'I knew that night, Sue,' he said, looking down into her starry eyes. 'I'd made up my mind to clear out, to go back to Australia, although I knew I would never find any lasting happiness there. You see, I'd got it into my head that you were marrying Hoyland and I couldn't take that. I couldn't stay here in the dale and see you married to someone else because, right from the first, Sue, I wanted you.' His arms tightened about her, his lips finding hers once more, gently this time, tenderly. 'It was always that way with me and always would have been, even if I had lost you.' 'Right from the first!' Susan repeated wonderingly. 'What a little beast I was, hating you because of Danely's!' 'And loving me in the end, in spite of Danely's?' She pressed her face hard against the roughness of his coat, ashamed of those days when her love had not been so sure as his.

'You said once,' she repeated determinedly, 'that I would never admit love till it became the dominant emotion in my life, outgrowing Danely's and everything else.' She raised misty eyes to his and the shining quality behind her tears could be mistaken. 'It's like that now, Gray,' she said. 'I love you. If you want to go back to Australia—wherever you go—take me with you!' 'We can go to Australia—or Paris!—on our honeymoon,' he told her. After that Susan lived in a happy dream where Danely's was still precious but not the centre of her universe. There had always been other interests in her life, of course, and Danely's might have been something of an obsession, but now she saw herself lucky enough to possess so many things the greatest of which was love. Her happiness with Gray was a wonderful thing. They went about the dale making their plans, looking ahead to the future together. Peverils, he decided, would be their wedding present to Beth and Paul, because Hester Courage had decided to go to live with her daughter once she was married, leaving Fourstones to Susan and Gray. 'Troubles and happiness never come singly!' she said, looking from one happy couple to the other. 'And neither do weddings! When you've straightened things out, perhaps you'll let me know which I'm to give away first—my son or my daughter!' Beth said, very decisively, that she thought she and Paul should be married first. 'We could look after Danely's together while Susan and you are away,' she pointed out ingeniously.

'But first of all,' Paul said, 'there's Dad's show. Gray and I have it all fixed. If we can collect the pictures and send them to London in time, Beth and I should be able to look round on our way back from our honeymoon!' He looked across the room at Beth, who smiled in return. 'And where are we going?' she asked. 'Maybe to Paris,' he said. 'But I'll tell you about that later. It should be kept a secret, you know!' 'I'm much too happy for secrets!' Beth declared, and on the day they came back from Paris the first exhibition of Daniel Danely's paintings was opened in a Bond Street gallery. Susan and her father travelled to London with Graham and Mrs Courage. 'It's a family affair,' Hester Courage declared. 'A great day for the dale!' Quietly, unobtrusively, Daniel Danely entered the long room to mingle with the fashionable crowd viewing his work, and Susan walked beside him with pride and gratitude surging in her heart, gratitude for all that Graham had done for them and for his love. He had fallen a step or two behind, leaving her this moment with her father alone. The old man hobbled the entire length of the room, halting before the final picture in the row, standing looking at it and nodding his head. There was a gentle smile on his lips and a look of peace and fulfilment in his eyes, and Susan turned swiftly and clasped her fiancé's hand.

They stood looking at the landscape, at quiet Colourdale with its gentle green hills and the blue sky over it, at its river and the stone bridge leading to Peverils, and in that moment Susan knew that her life and her love were complete.