knew not
why--away from him. But it enabled her to see a figure approaching them
from the fort. And I grieve to say that, perhaps for the first time in
her life, Lady Elfrida was guilty of an affected start.

"Oh, here's Reggy coming to look for me. I'd quite forgotten, but I'm
so glad. I want you to know my brother Reggy. He was always so sorry he
missed you at the Grange."

The tall, young, good-looking brown Englishman who had sauntered up
bestowed a far more critical glance upon Peter's horse than upon Peter,
but nevertheless grasped his hand heartily as his sister introduced him.
Perhaps both men were equally undemonstrative, although the reserve of
one was from temperament and the other from education. Nevertheless Lord
Reginald remarked, with a laugh, that it was awfully jolly to be there,
and that it had been a beastly shame that he was in Scotland when
Atherly was at the Grange. That none of them had ever suspected till
they came to the fort that he, Atherly, was one of those government
chappies, and so awfully keen on Indian politics. "Friddy" had been
the first to find it out, but they thought she was chaffing. At which
"Friddy," who had suddenly resolved herself into the youthfulest of
schoolgirls in the presence of her brother, put her parasol like an
Indian club behind her back, and still rosy, beamed admiringly upon
Reggy. Then the three, Peter leading his horse, moved on towards the
fort, presently meeting "Georgy," the six-foot Guardsman cousin in
extraordinary tweeds and flannel shirt; Lord Runnybroke, uncle
of Friddy, middle-aged and flannel-shirted, a mighty hunter; Lady
Runnybroke, in a brown duster, but with a stately head that suggested
ostrich feathers; Moyler-Spence, M. P., with an eyeglass, and the Hon.
Evelyn Kayne, closely attended by the always gallant Lieutenant Forsyth.
Peter began to feel a nervous longing to be alone on the burning plain
and the empty horizon beyond them, until he could readjust himself to
these new conditions, and glanced half-wearily around him. But his eye
met Friddy's, who seemed to have evoked this gathering with a wave of
her parasol, like the fairy of a pantomime, and he walked on in silence.

A day or two of unexpected pleasure passed for Peter. In these new
surroundings he found he could separate Lady Elfrida from his miserable
past, and the conventional restraint of Ashley Grange. Again, the
revelation of her familiar name Friddy seemed to make her more
acc