laces like this," he answered, "not many as old and
fine, and not many as nearly gone to ruin. Even Stornham is not quite as
far gone."

"It is far gone," said Miss Vanderpoel. "I am staying there--with my
sister, Lady Anstruthers."

"Beg pardon--miss," he said. This time he touched his cap in apology.

Enormous as the gulf between their positions was, he knew that he had
offered to take her over the place because he was in a sense glad to
see her again. Why he was glad he did not profess to know or even to
ask himself. Coarsely speaking, it might be because she was one of the
handsomest young women he had ever chanced to meet with, and while her
youth was apparent in the rich red of her mouth, the mass of her thick,
soft hair and the splendid blue of her eyes, there spoke in every line
of face and pose something intensely more interesting and compelling
than girlhood. Also, since the night they had come together on the
ship's deck for an appalling moment, he had liked her better and
rebelled less against the unnatural wealth she represented. He led her
first to the wood from which she had seen him emerge.

"I will show you this first," he explained. "Keep your eyes on the
ground until I tell you to raise them."

Odd as this was, she obeyed, and her lowered glance showed her that she
was being guided along a narrow path between trees. The light was mellow
golden-green, and birds were singing in the boughs above her. In a few
minutes he stopped.

"Now look up," he said.

She uttered an exclamation when she did so. She was in a fairy dell
thick with ferns, and at beautiful distances from each other incredibly
splendid oaks spread and almost trailed their lovely giant branches. The
glow shining through and between them, the shadows beneath them, their
great boles and moss-covered roots, and the stately, mellow distances
revealed under their branches, the ancient wildness and richness, which
meant, after all, centuries of cultivation, made a picture in
this exact, perfect moment of ripening afternoon sun of an almost
unbelievable beauty.

"There is nothing lovelier," he said in a low voice, "in all England."

Bettina turned to look at him, because his tone was a curious one for a
man like himself. He was standing resting on his gun and taking in the
loveliness with a strange look in his rugged face.

"You--you love it!" she said.

"Yes," but with a suggestion of stubborn reluctance in the admission.

She was