"Yes; I am in rather a difficulty. You are the only person who can help me."

Nicholas laughed shortly.

"It is an odd experience to be told that I can be of service to any one,"

he said. "What is it?"

Trix drew a long breath.

"Mr. Danver, I want you to release me from my promise."

Nicholas's eyes narrowed suddenly. A little gleam, like the spark from iron striking flint, flashed from them.

"What do you mean?" he asked coldly.

Trix's heart chilled at the tone.

"I must try and explain," she said. "In the first place, of course you know who your under-gardener really is?"

Nicholas stared at her.

"May I ask what that has got to do with you?"

"Well, I know too, you see," said Trix, feeling her heart beginning to beat still more quickly.

"How do you know? What questions have you been asking?"

Trix flushed.

"I haven't asked any questions," she said quickly. "I saw him the day I came here before. I knew his face then, but I couldn't remember who he was. Afterwards I remembered I used to play with him when I was a child."

"Well?" queried Nicholas briefly.

"Well," echoed Trix desperately, "I want to be able to tell someone he is Antony Gray, and not Michael Field. It is really very important that they should know, important for their happiness. But if I tell, they may want to know where I saw him, and ask questions which might lead to my either having to tell lies or betray your secret. If it becomes necessary, may I betray your secret? Will you release me from my promise?"

Nicholas's hand clenched tightly on the arm of his chair.

"Most certainly not," he replied shortly.

The tone was utterly final. Trix felt the old childish fear of him surging over her. It was quite different from the nervousness she had just been experiencing, and, oddly enough, it gave her a kind of desperate courage. She had no intention of accepting his refusal without a struggle.

"I wouldn't tell unless it became absolutely necessary," she urged.

"It never can be absolutely necessary," he retorted. "It would be no more dishonourable to tell a lie than break a promise."

Trix went scarlet.

"I never had the smallest intention of doing either," she replied. "If I had, I need not have troubled to come up here and ask you to release me from my promise."

Nicholas drummed his fingers on a small table near him.

"Well, you've had my answer," he said.

His voice was perfectly adamantine. Trix felt as if she were up against a piece of rock. She knew it was useless to pursue the subject further, yet for Pia's sake she tried again.

"Mr. Danver, why do you want everyone to think you're dead?" There was something almost childish in the way she put the question.

Nicholas laughed.

"Partly, my dear young lady, for my own amus.e.m.e.nt, but largely for a scheme I have on hand."

Trix leant forward.

"Is the scheme really important?" she queried, her eyes on his face.

"I don't know," he replied, watching her. "But my amus.e.m.e.nt is."

"Amus.e.m.e.nt," said Trix slowly.

"Yes, my amus.e.m.e.nt," he repeated mockingly. "I've had none for fifteen years. For fifteen years I have lived here like a log, alone, solitary.

Now I've got a little amus.e.m.e.nt in pretending to be dead."

Trix shook her head. It sounded quite mad. Then she remembered Doctor Hilary's words to her when she had met him at the gates of Chorley Old Hall last August. He knew it was mad, but it was saving Nicholas from being atrophied, so he had said. To Trix's mind at least a dozen more satisfactory ways might have been found to accomplish that end. But every man to his own taste. Also it was quite possible that a brain which had been atrophied, or practically atrophied for fifteen years, was not particularly capable of conceiving anything more enlivening.

"But you needn't have been a log for fifteen years," she said suddenly.

"Needn't I?" he retorted. "Look at me." He made a gesture towards his helpless legs.

"I wasn't thinking of your body," said Trix calmly. "I was thinking of your mind."

Nicholas's face hardened.

"And so was I," he replied, "when I preferred to sit here like a log, rather than face the prying sympathy of my fellow-humans."

"Oh!" said Trix softly, a light of illumination breaking in upon her.

"But, Mr. Danver, sympathy isn't always prying."

"Bah!" he retorted. "Prying or not, I didn't want it. Staring eyes, condoling words, and mockery in their hearts! 'He got what he deserved for his madness,' they'd have said."

Trix leant forward, putting her hands on the table.

"Mr. Danver," she said thoughtfully, "if you were a younger man, or I were an older woman, I'd say you were--well, quite remarkably foolish."

Nicholas chuckled. He liked this.

"You might forget our respective ages for a few moments," he suggested, "that is, if you have anything enlivening to say."

"I don't know about it being enlivening," remarked Trix calmly, "but I have got quite a good deal to say."

"Say it then," chuckled Nicholas.