the grace of a portrait by Gainsborough. When she
recognized him, indeed, she seemed as permanently caught as a portrait.

"Miss Sylvia!" his mother worshipped.

"They told me I would find you here," Sylvia said, uncertainly. "I
didn't know----"

She broke off, biting her lip. George strolled around the oblong box to
the window, turning there with a slow bow. Even across that desolate,
dead shell, the obstinate distaste and the challenge were lively in her
glance.

"It was very kind of you to come," he said.

But he was sorry she had come. To see him in such surroundings was a
stimulation of the ugly memories he had struggled to destroy. He read
her instinct to hurt him now as she had hurt the impertinent man,
Morton, who had lived in this house.

"When one of our people is in trouble----" she began, deliberately. "I
thought I might be of some help to your mother."

Even over the feeling of security George had just tried to give her the
old menace reached the uneasy woman.

"You--you remember him, Miss Sylvia?"

"Very well," Sylvia answered. "He used to be my groom."

"The title comes from you," George said, dryly.

His mother's glance fluttered from one to the other. What did she
expect--Old Planter stalking in to carry out his threats?

"After all these years I scarcely knew him myself."

Sylvia's colour heightened. He appraised her rising temper.

"Bad servants," he said, "linger in good employers' memories."

"I know, Miss Sylvia," his mother burst out, "that he wasn't to come
back here, but----"

She unclasped her nervous hands. One indicated the silent cause of his
disobedience. George moved toward the door. Sylvia stepped quickly
aside. He felt, like a physical wave, her desire to hurt.

"At such a time," she said, "it's natural he should come back to his
home. I think my father would be glad to have him with his mother."

George shrugged his shoulders, slipped out, navigated the shoals of
whispering women, and reached the clean air. He buttoned his overcoat
and shuffled through the dead leaves beneath the trees until he found
himself at the spot where Lambert and he had fought. He recalled his
hot boasts of that day. Fulfilment had seemed simple enough then. The
scene just submitted reminded him how short a distance he had actually
travelled.

He knew she would pass that way on her return to the big house, so he
waited, and when he heard her feet disturbing the dead leaves he didn't
turn.