ok heart again. If he rode at dawn, it was not in
quest of Richard that he went, since it had been near eleven o'clock
when she had left Bridgwater. He must have gone on other business first,
and, doubtless, before he went to the encounter he would be returning
home. "Said he at what hour he would return?" she asked.

"He bade us expect him by noon, madam."

This gave confirmation to her thoughts. It wanted more than half an hour
to noon already. "Then he may return at any moment?" said she.

"At any moment, madam," was the grave reply.

She took her resolve. "I will wait," she announced, to the man's
increasing if undisplayed astonishment. "Let my horse be seen to."

He bowed his obedience, and she followed him--a slender, graceful
figure in her dove-coloured riding-habit laced with silver--across the
stone-flagged vestibule, through the cool gloom of the great hall, into
the spacious library of which he held the door.

"Mistress Horton is following me," she informed the butler. "Will you
bring her to me when she comes?"

Bowing again in silent acquiescence, the white-haired servant closed the
door and left her. She stood in the centre of the great room, drawing
off her riding-gloves, perturbed and frightened beyond all reason at
finding herself for the first time under Mr. Wilding's roof. He was
most handsomely housed. His grandfather, who had travelled in Italy,
had built the Chase upon the severe and noble lines which there he had
learnt to admire, and he had embellished its interior, too, with many
treasures of art which with that intent he had there collected.

She dropped her whip and gloves on to a table, and sank into a chair
to wait, her heart fluttering in her throat. Time passed, and in the
silence of the great house her anxiety was gradually quieted, until at
last through the long window that stood open came faintly wafted to her
on the soft breeze of that June morning the sound of a church clock at
Weston Zoyland chiming twelve. She rose with a start, bethinking her
suddenly of Diana, and wondering why she had not yet arrived. Was the
child's indisposition graver than she had led Ruth to suppose? She
crossed to the windows and stood there drumming impatiently upon the
pane, her eyes straying idly over the sweep of elm-fringed lawns towards
the river gleaming silvery here and there between the trees in the
distance.

Suddenly she caught a sound of hoofs. Was this Diana? She sped to the
other windo