way
after all!... I don't think I'll threaten her again with--alternatives.
There's no telling what a fool might do in a panic." Then, as though the
spectacle bored him, he yawned, stretched his arms and back gracefully,
turned and touched the button that summoned his servant.

"Order the horses and pack as usual, Simmons," he said with another
yawn. "I'm going to New York. Isn't Mr. Portlaw here yet?"

"No, sir."

"Did you say he went away on horseback?"

"Yes, sir, this morning."

"And you don't know where?"

"No, sir. Mr. Portlaw took the South Road."

Malcourt grinned again, perfectly certain, now, of Portlaw's
destination; and thinking to himself that unless his fatuous employer
had been landed in a ditch somewhere, en route, he was by this time
returning from Pride's Fall with considerable respect for Mrs. Ascott.

* * * * *

As a matter of fact, Portlaw had already started on his way back. Mrs.
Ascott was not at Pride's Hall--her house--when he presented himself at
the door. Her servant, evidently instructed, did not know where Mrs.
Ascott and Miss Palliser had gone or when they might return.

So Portlaw betook himself heavily to the village inn, where he insulted
his astonished stomach with a noonday dinner, and found the hard wooden
chairs exceedingly unpleasant.

About five o'clock he got into his saddle with an unfeigned groan, and
out of it again at Mrs. Ascott's door. They told him there that Mrs.
Ascott was not at home.

Whether this might be the conventional manner of informing him that she
declined to receive him, or whether she really was out, he had no means
of knowing; so he left his cards for Mrs. Ascott and Miss Palliser, also
the note which young Mrs. Malcourt had given him; clambered once more up
the side of his horse, suppressing his groans until out of hearing and
well on his way toward the fatal boundary.

In the late afternoon, sky and water had turned to a golden rose hue;
clouds of gnats danced madly over meadow pools, calm mirrors of the
sunset, save when a trout sprang quivering, a dark, slim crescent
against the light, falling back with a mellow splash that set the pool
rocking.

At gaze a deer looked at him from sedge, furry ears forward; stamped,
winded him, and, not frightened very much, trotted into the dwarf
willows, halting once or twice to look around.

As he advanced, his horse splashing through the flooded land
fetlock-deep in