CHAPTER VIII

AFTER SUNSET

The sun had set. Back from his flight over the hills with Sherrill,
Philip had bathed and shaved, whistling thoughtfully to himself. Now
as he descended the steep Sherrill lane to the valley, ravine and
hollow were already dark with twilight. From the rustling trees
arching the lane overhead came the occasional sleepy chirp and flutter
of a bird. Off somewhere in the gathering dusk a lonely owl hooted
eerily. Still there was storm in the warm, sweet air to-night and back
yonder over the hills to the north, the sky brightened fitfully with
lightning.

Slipping his hand carelessly into his coat pocket for a pipe, Philip
laughed.

"My Lord!" said he lightly. "The hieroglyphical cuff! I should have
given that to the Baron. . . . Themar," added Philip, packing his
pipe, "is an infernal bounder!"

Diane's camp lay barely two miles to the west. Homing at sunset Philip
had veered and circled over it. Now as he turned westward toward the
river, the nature of his errand chafed him sorely.

"Nor can I see," mused Philip, puffing uncomfortably at his pipe, "why
in the devil he wants to know!"