rees, she reined in Whitefoot, and
bending forward, held out her hand. "Good-bye!"

"You're not coming?"

"I think I've had enough. I'll go home. Good-bye."

It was a relief. In both minds had risen the image of their
arrival together--amid the crowd of the meet. As he looked at
her--gratefully--the grace of her movement, the temptation of her eyes,
the rush of old memories suddenly turned his head. He gripped her hand
hard for a minute, staring at her.

The road in front of them was quite empty. But fifty yards behind them
was a small red-brick house buried in trees. As they still paused, hand
in hand, in front of the gate into the wood, which had failed to swing
back and remained half open, the garden door of this house unclosed and
a young woman in a kind of uniform stepped into the road. She perceived
the two riders--stopped in astonishment--observed them unseen, and
walked quickly away in the direction of the station.

Roger reached Heston that night only just in time to dress for dinner.

By this time he was in a wholly different mood; angry with himself, and
full of rueful thought about his wife. Daphne and he had been getting on
anything but well for some time past. He knew that he had several times
behaved badly; why, indeed, that very afternoon, had he held Chloe
Fairmile's hand in the public road, like an idiot? Suppose anyone had
passed? It was only Daphne's tempers and the discomfort at home that
made an hour with Chloe so pleasant--and brought the old recollections
back. He vowed he never thought of her, except when she was there to
make a fool of him--or plague him about those beastly letters. Whereas
Daphne--Daphne was always in his mind, and this eclipse into which their
daily life had passed. He seemed to be always tripping and stumbling,
like a lame man among loose stones; doing or saying what he did not mean
to do or say, and tongue-tied when he should have spoken. Daphne's
jealousy made him ridiculous; he resented it hotly; yet he knew he was
not altogether blameless.

If only something could be done to make Daphne like Heston and the
neighbours! But he saw plainly enough that in spite of all the effort
and money she was pouring out upon the house, it gave her very little
pleasure in return. Her heart was not in it. And as for the neighbours,
she had scarcely a good word now for any of them. Jolly!--just as he was
going to stand for the County Council, with an idea of Parliament later
on! An