"In fact--a tramp," suggested Raymond.

"Possibly. I think I should like to have been a gypsy, and to have
wandered about, finding a new home every night."

"And a change of linen on the early morning hedges," said Raymond.
"But do you think seriously that you and your sister are suitably
clad to commence to-night. It is bitterly cold," he added, turning
up his collar. "Could you begin by showing a pal the nearest
haystack or hen-roost?"

"Sybarite!" She cast a long look over the fields and down the
lane. Suddenly she started. "What is that?"

She pointed to a tall erect figure slowly disappearing on the other
side of the hedge.

"It's Pereo, only Pereo. I knew him by his long serape," said
Garnier, who was nearest the hedge, complacently. "But what is
surprising, he was not there when we came, nor did he come out of
that open field. He must have been walking behind us on the other
side of the hedge."

The eyes of the two girls sought each other simultaneously, but not
without Raymond's observant glance. Amita's brow darkened as she
moved to her sister's side, and took her arm with a confidential
pressure that was returned. The two men, with a vague
consciousness of some contretemps, dropped a pace behind, and began
to talk to each other, leaving the sisters to exchange a few words