revolt blazed up in her. She never asked him anything; he
should not refuse this. He came up behind and put his arms round her.

"My Gyp, I want you here--I am lonely, too. Don't go away."

She tried to force his arms apart, but could not, and her anger grew.
She said coldly:

"There's another reason why I must go."

"No, no! No good reason--to take you from me."

"There is! The girl who is just going to have your child is staying near
Mildenham, and I want to see how she is."

He let go of her then, and recoiling against the divan, sat down. And Gyp
thought: 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--but it serves him right.'

He muttered, in a dull voice:

"Oh, I hoped she was dead."

"Yes! For all you care, she might be. I'm going, but you needn't be
afraid that I shan't come back. I shall be back to-day week; I promise."

He looked at her fixedly.

"Yes. You don't break your promises; you will not break it." But,
suddenly, he said again: "Gyp, don't go!"

"I must."

He got up and caught her in his arms.

"Say you love me, then!"

But she could not. It was one thing to put up with embraces, quite
another to pretend that. When at last he was gone, she sat smoothing her
hair, staring before her with hard eyes, thinking: "Here--where I saw him
with that girl! What animals men are!"

Late that afternoon, she reached Mildenham. Winton met her at the
station. And on the drive up, they passed the cottage where Daphne Wing
was staying. It stood in front of a small coppice, a creepered,
plain-fronted, little brick house, with a garden still full of
sunflowers, tenanted by the old jockey, Pettance, his widowed daughter,
and her three small children. "That talkative old scoundrel," as Winton
always called him, was still employed in the Mildenham stables, and his
daughter was laundress to the establishment. Gyp had secured for Daphne
Wing the same free, independent, economic agent who had watched over her
own event; the same old doctor, too, was to be the presiding deity.
There were no signs of life about the cottage, and she would not stop,
too eager to be at home again, to see the old rooms, and smell the old
savour of the house, to get to her old mare, and feel its nose nuzzling
her for sugar. It was so good to be back once more, feeling strong and
well and able to ride. The smile of the inscrutable Markey at the front
door was a joy to her, even the darkness of the hall, where a gleam of
last sunl