d out
himself--afraid of his own face. For feverishness in sick persons mounts
steadily with the approach of a certain hour. And surely his face, to
anyone who could have seen him being conveyed to Piccadilly, would have
suggested a fevered invalid rather than a healthy, middle-aged sculptor
in a cab.

The horses were before the door--the little magpie horse, and a
thoroughbred bay mare, weeded from Dromore's racing stable. Nell, too,
was standing ready, her cheeks very pink, and her eyes very bright. She
did not wait for him to mount her, but took the aid of the confidential
man. What was it that made her look so perfect on that little
horse--shape of limb, or something soft and fiery in her spirit that the
little creature knew of?

They started in silence, but as soon as the sound of hoofs died on the
tan of Rotten Row, she turned to him.

"It was lovely of you to come! I thought you'd be afraid--you ARE afraid
of me."

And Lennan thought: You're right!

"But please don't look like yesterday. To-day's too heavenly. Oh! I
love beautiful days, and I love riding, and--" She broke off and looked
at him. 'Why can't you just be nice to me'--she seemed to be
saying--'and love me as you ought!' That was her power--the conviction
that he did, and ought to love her; that she ought to and did love him.
How simple!

But riding, too, is a simple passion; and simple passions distract each
other. It was a treat to be on that bay mare. Who so to be trusted to
ride the best as Johnny Dromore?

At the far end of the Row she cried out: "Let's go on to Richmond now,"
and trotted off into the road, as if she knew she could do with him what
she wished. And, following meekly, he asked himself: Why? What was
there in her to make up to him for all that he was losing--his power of
work, his dignity, his self-respect? What was there? Just those eyes,
and lips, and hair?

And as if she knew what he was thinking, she looked round and smiled.

So they jogged on over the Bridge and across Barnes Common into Richmond
Park.

But the moment they touched turf, with one look back at him, she was off.
Had she all the time meant to give him this breakneck chase--or had the
loveliness of that Autumn day gone to her head--blue sky and coppery
flames of bracken in the sun, and the beech leaves and the oak leaves;
pure Highland colouring come South for once.

When in the first burst he had tested the mare's wind, this chase of