blood or did not care. There was more than discomfort in his voice, there
was a very real distress. And in his eyes his heart ached for her to see.
Something of her pride was restored to her. She fell at once to his tune,
but she was conscious that both of them talked treacheries.

"Yes, you are right. It wouldn't have been possible. You have your name
and your fortune to make. I too--I shall marry, I suppose, some one"--and
she suddenly smiled rather bitterly--"who will give me a Rolls-Royce
motor-car." And so they rode on very reasonably.

Noon had passed. A hush had fallen upon that high world of grass and
sunlight. The birds were still. They talked of this and that, the
latest crisis in Europe and the growth of Socialism, all very wisely
and with great indifference like well-bred people at a dinner-party.
Not thus had Stella thought to ride home when the message had come that
morning that the horses would be at her door before ten. She had ridden
out clothed on with dreams of gold. She rode back with her dreams in
tatters and a sort of incredulity that to her too, as to other girls,
all this pain had come.

They came to a bridle-path which led downwards through a thicket of trees
to the weald and so descended upon Great Beeding. They rode through the
little town, past the inn where Thresk was staying and the iron gates of
a Park where, amidst elm-trees, the blackened ruins of a great house
gaped to the sky.

"Some day you will live there again," said Thresk, and Stella's lips
twitched with a smile of humour.

"I shall be very glad after to-day to leave the house I am living in,"