be for you to decide," he answered. "I would take
you straight back to your mother if you wished."

She gave a muffled laugh.

"Of course I shouldn't want you to do that."

"Or," proceeded Rivington, "I would hire an animal to draw the caravan,
and we would go for a holiday in the forest. Would it bore you?"

"I don't think so," she said, without looking at him. "I--I could
sketch, you know, and you could paint."

"To be sure," he said. "Shall we do that, then?"

She began to split the straw with minute care.

"You think there is no danger of--Dinghra?" she said, after a moment.

Rivington smiled grimly, and got to his feet. "Not the smallest," he
said.

"He might come back," she persisted. "What if--what if he tried to
murder you?"

Rivington was coaxing his pipe back to life. He accomplished his object
before he replied. Then:

"You need not have the faintest fear of that," he said. "Dinghra has had
the advantage of a public-school education. He has doubtless been
thrashed before."

"He is vindictive," she objected.

"He may be, but he is shrewd enough to know when the game is up.
Frankly, Chirpy, I don't think the prospect of pestering you, or even of
punishing me, will induce him to take the field again after we are
married. No"--he smiled down at her--"I think I have cooled his ardour
too effectually for that."

She shuddered.

"I shall never forget it."

He patted her shoulder reassuringly.

"I think you will, Chirpy. Or at least you will place it in the same
category as the bull incident. You will forget the fright, and remember
only with kindness the Knight Errant who had the good fortune to pull
you through."

She reached up and squeezed his hand, still without looking at him.

"I shall always do that," she said softly.

"Then that's settled," said Rivington in a tone of quiet satisfaction.

XIII

THE KNIGHT ERRANT VICTORIOUS

"On the 21st of June, quite privately, at the Parish Church, Rington,
Hampshire, by the Vicar of the Parish, Cecil Mordaunt Rivington to
Ernestine, fourth daughter of Lady Florence Cardwell."

Cecil Mordaunt Rivington, with his pipe occupying one corner of his
mouth, and the other cocked at a distinctly humorous angle, sat on the
step of the caravan on the evening of the day succeeding that of his
marriage, and read the announcement thereof in the paper which he had
just fetched from the post-office.

There was considerable complacence in his att