isturbed.'
Leonard was lying back in his chair fanning himself with his wide-brimmed
straw hat, with outstretched legs wide apart and resting on the back of
his heels. He replied with grudging condescension:

'Yes, it's cool enough after the hot tramp over the fields and through
the wood. It's not so good as the house, though, in one way: a man can't
get a drink here. I say, Stephen, it wouldn't be half bad if there were
a shanty put up here like those at the Grands Mulets or on the
Matterhorn. There could be a tap laid on where a fellow could quench his
thirst on a day like this!'

Before Stephen's eyes floated a momentary vision of a romantic chalet
with wide verandah and big windows looking over the landscape; a great
wide stone hearth; quaint furniture made from the gnarled branches of
trees; skins on the floor; and the walls adorned with antlers, great
horns, and various trophies of the chase. And amongst them Leonard, in a
picturesque suit, lolling back just as at present and smiling with a
loving look in his eyes as she handed him a great blue-and-white Munich
beer mug topped with cool foam. There was a soft mystery in her voice as
she answered:

'Perhaps, Leonard, there will some day be such a place here!' He seemed
to grumble as he replied:

'I wish it was here now. Some day seems a long way off!'

This seemed a good opening for Stephen; for the fear of the situation was
again beginning to assail her, and she felt that if she did not enter on
her task at once, its difficulty might overwhelm her. She felt angry
with herself that there was a change in her voice as she said:

'Some day may mean--can mean everything. Things needn't be a longer way
off than we choose ourselves, sometimes!'

'I say, that's a good one! Do you mean to say that because I am some day
to own Brindehow I can do as I like with it at once, whilst the
governor's all there, and a better life than I am any day? Unless you
want me to shoot the old man by accident when we go out on the First.' He
laughed a short, unmeaning masculine laugh which jarred somewhat on her.
She did not, however, mean to be diverted from her main purpose, so she
went on quickly:

'You know quite well, Leonard, that I don't mean anything of the kind.
But there was something I wanted to say to you, and I wished that we
should be alone. Can you not guess what it is?'

'No, I'll be hanged if I can!' was his response, lazily given.

Despite her reso