n before, mutely bearing
that which her whole soul clamoured inarticulately to escape. When he let
her go, her cheeks were on fire. He was laughing, but she was on the
verge of tears.

He started on again without words, and in a very brief space they were
racing forward at terrific speed, seeming scarcely to touch the ground so
rapid was their progress.

Dinah sat with her two hands clutched upon her hat, thankful for the cold
rush of air that gave her relief after the fiery intensity of those
unsparing kisses. Her heart was beating in great thumps. Somehow the
fierceness of him always exceeded either memory or expectation. He was so
terribly strong, so disconcertingly absolute in his demands upon her. And
every time he seemed to take more.

She hardly noticed anything further of the country through which they
passed. Her agitation possessed her overwhelmingly. She felt exhausted,
unnerved, very curiously ashamed. It was good to have so princely a
lover, but his tempestuous wooing was altogether too much for her. She
wondered how Rose, the sedate and composed beauty, would have met those
wild gusts of passion. They would not have disconcerted her; nothing ever
did. She would probably have endured all with a smile. No form of
adoration could come amiss with her. She did not fancy that Rose's heart
was capable of beating at more than the usual speed. Her very blushes
savoured of a delicate complacency that enhanced her beauty without
disturbing her serenity. A great wave of envy went through Dinah. "Ah,
why had she not been blessed with such a temperament as that?"

His voice broke in upon her disjointed meditations. "Well, Daphne?
Feeling better?"

She glanced at him with the confused consciousness that she dared not
meet his eyes. She was glad that he was laughing, but the turbulent
feeling of uncertainty that his nearness always brought to her was with
her still. She was as one who had passed by a raging fire, and the
scorching heat of the flame yet remained with her. Breathlessly she
spoke. "I can't think--or do anything--in this wind. Are we nearly
there?"

"We are there," he made answer.

And she discovered that which in her distress of mind she had failed to
notice. They were running smoothly along a private avenue of fir-trees
towards an old stone mansion that stood on a slope overlooking the long
river valley.

She drew a hard breath. "But this is better--ever so much--than the
Court!" she said.

"Yo