inary clothes, without so much as a pair of
straps to keep his trousers down, or a bit of a stick in his hand. The
animal was a rather ill-tempered black that had arrived from Yorkshire
two days previously in charge of a boy who gave him a bad character.
As Mr. Van Torp descended the steps with his clumsy gait, the horse
laid his ears well back for a moment and looked as if he meant to
kick anything within reach. Mr. Van Torp looked at him in a dull way,
puffed his cigar, and made one remark in the form of a query.

'He ain't a lamb, is he?'

'No, sir,' answered the groom with sympathetic alacrity, 'and if I was
you, sir, I wouldn't--'

But the groom's good advice was checked by an unexpected phenomenon.
Mr. Van Torp was suddenly up, and the black was plunging wildly as
was only to be expected; what was more extraordinary was that Mr. Van
Torp's expression showed no change whatever, the very big cigar was
stuck in his mouth at precisely the same angle as before, and he
appeared to be glued to the saddle. He sat perfectly erect, with his
legs perpendicularly straight, and his hands low and quiet.

The next moment the black bolted down the drive, but Mr. Van Torp did
not seem the least disturbed, and the astonished groom, his mouth wide
open and his arms hanging down, saw that the rider gave the beast his
head for a couple of hundred yards, and then actually stopped him
short, bringing him almost to the ground on his haunches.

'My Gawd, 'e's a cowboy!' exclaimed the groom, who was a Cockney,
and had seen a Wild West show and recognised the real thing. 'And
me thinkin' 'e was goin' to break his precious neck and wastin' my
bloomin' sympathy on 'im!'

Since that first day Mr. Van Torp had not ridden more than a score of
times in two years. He preferred driving, because it was less trouble,
and partly because he could take little Ida with him. It was therefore
always a noticeable event in the monotonous existence at Torp Towers
when he ordered a horse to be saddled, as he did on the day after he
had got Lady Maud's note from Craythew.

He rode across the hilly country at a leisurely pace, first by lanes
and afterwards over a broad moor, till he entered a small beech wood
by a bridle-path not wide enough for two to ride together, and lined
with rhododendrons, lilacs, and laburnum. A quarter of a mile from
the entrance a pretty glade widened to an open lawn, in the middle
of which stood a ruin, consisting of the choir