et any one help? You, you refuse to let any one
share the cares of that disabled family?"

Again Dickie stared at her, arrested by her speech and doubtful of the
intention of it. He could have sworn there were tears in her voice,
that it trembled. But her face was averted, and he could see no more
than the slightly angular outline of her cheek and chin.

"Isn't that a rather superfluous question?" he remarked. "As you
pointed out a little while ago, mine is not a super-abundantly cheerful
programme. No one would volunteer for such service--at least no one
likely to be acceptable to my mother, or indeed likely to satisfy my
own requirements. I admit, I'm a little fastidious, a little critical
and exacting, when it comes to close quarters and--well--permanent
association, even yet."

"I am very glad to hear that," Honoria said. Her face remained averted,
but there was a change in her attitude, a decision in the pose of her
figure, suggestive both of challenge and of triumph.

Richard was nonplussed, but his blood was up. This conversation had
gone far enough--indeed too far. Very certainly he would make an end of
it.

"But God forbid," he exclaimed, "that I should ever fall to such a
depth of selfishness as to invite any person who would satisfy my
taste, my demands, to share my life! I mayn't amount to very much, but
at least I have never used my personal ill luck to trade on a woman's
generosity and pity. What I have had from women, I've paid for, in hard
cash. In that respect my conscience is clear. It has been a bargain,
fair and square and above board, and all my debts are settled in full.
You hardly think at this time of day I should use my proposed schemes
of philanthropy as a bait?"

Richard sent his horse forward at a sharp trot.

"No, no, Honoria," he said, "let it be understood that side of things
is over forever."

But here came relief from the green glooms of the green-wood and the
dangerous magic of them. For the riders had reached the summit of the
hill, and entered upon the levels of the great table-land at the head
of which Brockhurst House stands. Here was the open, the fresh breeze,
the long-drawn, sighing song of the fir forest--a song more austere,
more courageous, more virile, than ever sung by the trees of the wood
which drop their leaves for fear of the sharp-toothed winter, and only
put them forth again beneath the kisses of soft-lipped spring. Covering
all the western sky were lines of