ic whistle of the yellow thrush and the shrill chatter of a cloud
of finks flashing in and out of their hanging nests above the water.
She stood thus in the radiant evening light, trying to infuse her mind
with a measure of its peace.

But above the voices of Nature and of evening came another sound--the
dull thud of hoofs. Some one was riding up the bridle-path on the other
side of the river. Heavens! Could it be--?

The thought set her every pulse tingling. Nearer, nearer came the hoof
strokes.

The horseman emerged from the brake. Tired and travel-worn he looked,
so too did his steed. The latter plunged knee-deep into the cool
stream, and drank eagerly, gratefully, of the flowing waters.

But the glint of the white dress on the bank opposite caught the rider's
eye. Up went his head. So too did that of the horse, jerked up
suddenly by a violent wrench of the bridle. There was a prodigious
splashing, stifling the horseman's exclamation, as he plunged through
the drift, and the water flew in great jets around. Then scarce had the
dripping steed touched the opposite bank than the rider sprang to the
ground and the waiting, expectant figure was folded tight in his arms.

"Oh, Maurice, darling, it is you at last!" she murmured, clinging to him
in his close embrace. And then she felt that it was good indeed to
live.

"Me? Rather! And `at last' is about the word for it. And so my little
girl has been waiting here for me ever since I went away. Confess!
Hasn't she?"

"Yes."

"Of course. This was always our favourite retreat, wasn't it? Still, I
thought just the very moment I happened to arrive you would be anywhere
else--with the rest of the crowd. It's just one's luck as a rule. But
mine is better this time--rather!"

"But--but--where's Renshaw?" she asked, lifting her head, as she
suddenly became alive to the other's non-appearance. Sellon looked
rather blank.

"H'm--ha!--Renshaw? Well--he isn't here--hasn't come, anyhow."

"But--is he coming on after you?" she said, awake to the inconvenience
of their first meeting being suddenly broken in upon.

"M--well. The fact is, Violet darling, you don't care about anything or
anybody now we are together again? The long and the short of it is,
poor Fanning has rather come to grief!"

"Come to grief!" she echoed, wonderingly.

"Well--yes. Fact is, I'm afraid the poor chap will never show up here
again. He got hit--bowled over by those cursed