hat I am in another world. This
seems like a new planet."

"Would you--" she spoke rather shyly, "would you be able to stay a few
days?"

"I can stay a week," he answered. "Thank you, Robin."

"I am so glad," she said. "I am so glad."

So they did not talk about the War or about London, though she inquired
about the Duchess and Lady Lothwell and Kathryn.

"Would you like to go out and walk over the moor?" she asked after a
short time. "It's so scented and sweet, and darling things scurry about.
I don't think they are really frightened, because I try to walk softly.
Sometimes there are nests with eggs or soft little things in them."

They went out together and walked side by side, sometimes on the winding
road and sometimes through the heather. He found himself watching every
step she made and keeping his eye on the path ahead of them to make
sure she would avoid roughness or irregularities. In some inner part of
his being there remotely worked the thought that this was the way in
which he might have walked side by side with Alixe, watching over each
step taken by her sacred little feet.

The day was a wonder of peace and relaxation to him. Farther and
farther, until lost in nothingness, receded the roar and the tensely
strung sense of waiting for news of unbearable things. As they went on
he realised that he need not even watch the path before her because she
knew it so well and her step was as light and firm as a young roe's. Her
very movements seemed to express the natural physical enjoyment of
exercise.

He knew nothing of her mind but that Mademoiselle had told him that she
was intelligent. They had never talked together and so her mentality was
an unexplored field to him. She did not chatter. She said fresh
picturesque things about life on the moor, about the faithful silent
Macaurs, about Dowie, and now and then about something she had read. She
showed him beauties and small curious things she plainly loved. It
struck him that the whole trend of her being lay in the direction of
being fond of people and things--of loving and being happy,--and even
merry if life had been kind to her. Her soft laugh had a naturally merry
note. He heard it first when she held him quite still at her side as
they watched the frisking of some baby rabbits.

There was a curious relief in realising, as the hours passed, that her
old dislike and dread of him had melted into nothingness like a mist
blown away in the night. She wa