get some petrol close by?" and in a few words he
explained his predicament.

She looked him over with a sharp, scrutinizing glance. Apparently
satisfied, she smiled slightly and replied:

"But certainly, monsieur. Come to the mill and my father will get you
some. He is the manager."

She spoke even more haltingly than he had, and with no semblance of a
French accent--the French rather of an English school. He stared at her.

"But you're English!" he cried in surprise.

She laughed lightly.

"Of course I'm English," she answered. "Why shouldn't I be English? But
I don't think you're very polite about it, you know."

He apologized in some confusion. It was the unexpectedness of meeting
a fellow-countryman in this out of the way wood... It was... He did not
mean....

"You want to say my French is not really so bad after all?" she said
relentlessly, and then: "I can tell you it's a lot better than when we
came here."

"Then you are a newcomer?"

"We're not out very long. It's rather a change from London, as you may
imagine. But it's not such a bad country as it looks. At first I thought
it would be dreadful, but I have grown to like it."

She had turned with him, and they were now walking together between the
tall, straight stems of the trees.

"I'm a Londoner," said Merriman slowly. "I wonder if we have any mutual
acquaintances?"

"It's hardly likely. Since my mother died some years ago we have lived
very quietly, and gone out very little."

Merriman did not wish to appear inquisitive. He made a suitable reply
and, turning the conversation to the country, told her of his day's
ride. She listened eagerly, and it was borne in upon him that she was
lonely, and delighted to have anyone to talk to. She certainly seemed a
charming girl, simple, natural and friendly, and obviously a lady.

But soon their walk came to an end. Some quarter of a mile from the wood
the lane debouched into a large, D-shaped clearing. It had evidently
been recently made, for the tops of many of the tree-stumps dotted
thickly over the ground were still white. Round the semicircle of the
forest trees were lying cut, some with their branches still intact,
others stripped clear to long, straight poles. Two small gangs of men
were at work, one felling, the other lopping.

Across the clearing, forming its other boundary and the straight side
of the D, ran a river, apparently from its direction that which Merriman
had looked down on from