d upon it, too. They
only use this one in London, and I know that they are away somewhere
for the week-end."

"It has been so delightful," Ruth murmured. "Now I am going to lie
back among these beautiful cushions, and just watch and think."

The car glided on along the country lane, passing through leafy
hamlets, across a great breezy moorland, from the top of which they
could see the Thames winding its way into Oxfordshire, a sinuous
belt of silver. Then they sped down into the lower country, and
Arnold looked at the milestones in some surprise.

"We don't seem to be getting any nearer to London," he remarked.

Ruth only shook her head.

"It will come soon enough," she said, with a little shiver. "It will
pass, this, like everything else."

They had dropped to the level now, and suddenly, without warning,
the car swung through a low white gate up along an avenue of shrubs.
Arnold leaned forward.

"Where are you taking us?" he asked the driver. "There is some
mistake."

But there was no mistake. A turn of the wheel and the car was
slowing down before the front of a long, ivy-covered house, with a
lawn as smooth as velvet, and beyond, the soft murmur of the river.
Ruth clutched at his arm.

"Arnold!" she exclaimed. "What does this mean? Who lives here?"

"I have no idea," he answered, "unless--"

The windows in front of the house were all of them open and all of
them level with the drive. Through the nearest of them at that
moment stepped Fenella. She stood, for a moment, framed in the long
French window, hung with clematis,--a wonderful picture even for
Arnold, a revelation to Ruth,--in her cool muslin frock, open at the
throat, and held together by a brooch with a great green stone. She
wore no hat, and her wonderful hair seemed to have caught the
sunlight in its meshes. Her eyebrows were a little raised; her
expression was a little supercilious, faintly inquisitive. Already
she had looked past Arnold. Her eyes were fixed upon the girl by his
side.

"I began to think that you were lost," she said gayly. "Won't you
present me to your friend, Arnold?"

CHAPTER XX

WOMAN'S WILES

Arnold sprang to his feet. It was significant that, after his first
surprise, he spoke to Fenella with his head half turned towards his
companion, and an encouraging smile upon his lips.

"I had no idea that we were coming here," he said. "We should not
have thought of intruding. It was your chauffeur who would not