the door and left her. She stood in the centre of the great room,
drawing off her riding-gloves, perturbed and frightened beyond all
reason at finding herself for the first time under Mr. Wilding's roof.
He was most handsomely housed. His grandfather, who had travelled in
Italy, had built the Chase upon the severe and noble lines which there
he had learnt to admire, and he had embellished its interior, too,
with many treasures of art which with that intent he had there collected.

She dropped her whip and gloves on to a table, and sank into a chair to
wait, her heart fluttering in her throat. Time passed, and in the
silence of the great house her anxiety was gradually quieted, until at
last through the long window that stood open came faintly wafted to her
on the soft breeze of that June morning the sound of a church clock at
Weston Zoyland chiming twelve. She rose with a start, bethinking her
suddenly of Diana, and wondering why she had not yet arrived. Was the
child's indisposition graver than she had led Ruth to suppose? She
crossed to the windows and stood there drumming impatiently upon the
pane, her eyes straying idly over the sweep of elm-fringed lawns towards
the river gleaming silvery here and there between the trees in the
distance.

Suddenly she caught a sound of hoofs. Was this Diana? She sped to the
other window, the one that stood open, and now she heard the crunch of
gravel and the champ of bits and the sound of more than two pairs of
hoofs. She caught a glimpse of Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard.

She felt the colour flying from her cheeks; again her heart fluttered
in her throat, and it was in vain that with her hand she sought to
repress the heaving of her breast. She was afraid; her every instinct
bade her slip through the window at which she stood and run from Zoyland