old man, with no
memory."

"I should have thought him to have had a good memory," she said.

"I have always been led to believe that he was once sent away from
college in his youth,--for his health," he explained significantly. "No
man has a good memory who can't remember that. Perhaps the battle of
Gettysburg wiped it out."

Thus, in his own easy-going fashion, Mr. Pembroke sought to distract
her. She put on a hat, and they walked about, the various scenes
recalling incidents of holidays he had spent at Highlawns. And after a
while Honora was thankful that chance had sent her in this hour to him
rather than to Mrs. Kame. For the sight, that morning of this lady in
her dressing-gown over the stairway, had seemingly set the seal on a
growing distaste. Her feeling had not been the same about Mrs. Rindge:
Mrs. Kame's actions savoured of deliberate choice, of an inherent and
calculating wickedness.

Had the distraction of others besides himself been the chief business of
Mr. Pembroke's life, he could not have succeeded better that afternoon.
He must be given this credit: his motives remain problematical; at
length he even drew laughter from her. The afternoon wore on, they
returned to the garden for tea, and a peaceful stillness continued to
reign about them, the very sky smiling placidly at her fears. Not by
assuring her that Hugh was unusual horseman, that he had passed through
many dangers beside which this was a bagatelle, could the student of the
feminine by her side have done half so well. And it may have been that
his success encouraged him as he saw emerging, as the result of his
handiwork, an unexpectedly attractive--if still somewhat serious-woman
from the gloom that had enveloped her. That she should still have her
distrait moments was but natural.

He talked to her largely about Hugh, of whom he appeared sincerely fond.
The qualities which attracted Mr. Pembroke in his own sex were somewhat
peculiar, and seemingly consisted largely in a readiness to drop the
business at hand, whatever it might be, at the suggestion of a friend to
do something else; the "something else," of course, to be the conception
of an ingenious mind. And it was while he was in the midst of an
anecdote proving the existence of this quality in his friend that he
felt a sudden clutch on his arm.

They listened. Faintly, very faintly, could be heard the sound of hoof
beats; rapid, though distant.

"Do you hear?" she whispered, and sti