'It pains me, dear madam.'

'It relieves me, if you will. Here is your horse.'

She gave her hand. He touched it and bent. He looked at her. A surge
of impossible questions rolled to his mouth and rolled back, with the
thought of an incredible thing, that her manner, more than her words,
held him from doubting.

'I obey you,' he said.

'You are kind.'

He mounted horse, raised hat, paced on, and again bowing, to one of the
wayside trees, cantered. The man was gone; but not from Nataly's vision
that face of wet chalk under one of the shades of fire.




CHAPTER XXVI

IN WHICH WE SEE A CONVENTIONAL GENTLEMAN ENDEAVOURING TO EXAMINE A
SPECTRE OF HIMSELF

Dudley rode back to Cronidge with his thunderstroke. It filled him,
as in those halls of political clamour, where explanatory speech is not
accepted, because of a drowning tide of hot blood on both sides. He
sought to win attention by submitting a resolution, to the effect, that