afternoon?"

"Is it far from here?"

"Not much more than a mile. This wood joins the park, and there is a
public right of way across the park to the Lidford road, so the gate is
always open. We can't waste our walk, and I know Sir David quite well
enough to ask him to let you see the pictures, if he should happen to be
at home."

"I should like it of all things," said Gilbert eagerly. "My friend John
Saltram knows this Sir David Forster, and he talked of being down here at
this time: I forgot all about it till you spoke of Heatherly just now. I
have a knack of forgetting things now-a-days."

"I wonder that you should forget anything connected with Mr. Saltram,
Gilbert," said Marian; "that Mr. Saltram of whom you think so much. I
cannot tell you how anxious I am to see what kind of person he is; not
handsome--you have confessed as much as that."

"Yes, Marian, I admit the painful fact. There are people who call John
Saltram ugly. But his face is not a common one; it is a very picturesque
kind of ugliness--a face that Velasquez would have loved to paint, I
think. It is a rugged, strongly-marked countenance with a villanously
dark complexion; but the eyes are very fine, the mouth perfection; and
there is a look of power in the face that, to my mind, is better than
beauty."

"And I think you owned that Mr. Saltram is hardly the most agreeable
person in the world."