ter from Mr. Ferrier--her dear,
famous friend, who never forgot her, ignorant as she was of the great
affairs in which he was plunged. But she meant to be ignorant no longer.
No more brooding and dreaming! It was pleasant to remember that Sir
James Chide had taken a furnished house--Lytchett Manor--only a few
miles from Beechcote, and that Mr. Ferrier was to be his guest there as
soon as politics allowed. For her, Diana, that was well, for if he were
at Tallyn they could have met but seldom if at all.

She had made a round through a distant and sequestered lane in order to
prolong her walk. Presently she came to a deep cutting in the chalk,
where the road, embowered in wild roses and clematis, turned sharply at
the foot of a hill. As she approached the turn she heard sounds--a man's
voice. Her heart suddenly failed her. She looked to either side--no
gate, no escape. Nothing for it but to go forward. She turned
the corner.

Before her was a low pony carriage which Alicia Drake was driving. It
was drawn up by the side of the road, and Alicia sat in it, laughing and
talking, while Oliver Marsham gathered a bunch of wild roses from the
road-side. As Diana appeared, and before either of them saw her, Marsham
returned to the carriage, his hands full of flowers.

"Will that content you? I have torn myself to ribbons for you!"

"Oh, don't expect too much gratitude--_Oliver!_" The last word was low
and hurried. Alicia gathered up the reins hastily, and Marsham looked
round him--startled.

He saw a tall and slender girl coming toward them, accompanied by a
Scotch collie. She bowed to him and to Alicia, and passed quickly on.

"Never mind any more roses," said Alicia. "We ought to get home."

They drove toward Tallyn in silence. Alicia's startling hat of white
muslin framed the red gold of her hair, and the brilliant
color--assisted here and there by rouge--of her cheeks and lips. She
said presently, in a sympathetic voice:

"How sorry one is for her!"

Marsham made no reply. They passed into the darkness of overarching
trees, and there, veiled from him in the green twilight, Alicia no
longer checked the dancing triumph in her eyes.

CHAPTER XVIII

One Saturday in early August, some weeks after the incident described in
the last chapter, Bobbie Forbes, in the worst inn's worst fly, such
being the stress and famine of election time, drove up to the Tallyn
front door. It was the day after the polling, and Tallyn