hed drawing, however clever, so
seldom fulfils.

Ruth took it up, and looked out of the window. The sun was blazing out,
ashamed of his absence for so long. She might as well finish it now. She
was glad to be out of the way of meeting any one, especially the
shooters, whose guns she had heard in the nearer Slumberleigh coverts
several times that afternoon. The Arleigh woods she knew were to be kept
till later in the month. She took her block and paint-box, and picking
her way along the choked gravel walk and down the side drive to the
stables, sat down on the bench for chopping wood which had been left in
the place to which she had previously dragged it, and set to work. She
was sitting under one of the arches out of the wind, and an obsequious
yellow cat came out of the door of one of the nearest horse-boxes, in
which wood was evidently stacked, and rubbed itself against her dress,
with a reckless expenditure of hair.

As Ruth stopped a moment, bored but courteous, to return its well-meant
attentions by friction behind the ears, she heard a slight crackling
among the wood in the stable. Rats abounded in the place, and she was
just about to recall the cat to its professional duties, when her own
attention was also distracted. She started violently, and grasped the
drawing-block in both hands.

Clear over the gravel, muffled but still distinct across the long wet
grass, she could hear a firm step coming. Then it rang out sharply on
the stone pavement. A tall man came suddenly round the corner, under the
archway, and stood before her. It was Charles.

The yellow cat, which had a leaning towards the aristocracy, left Ruth,
and, picking its way daintily over the round stones towards him, rubbed
off some more of its wardrobe against his heather shooting-stockings.

"I hardly think it is worth while to say anything except the truth,"
said Charles at last. "I have followed you here."

As Ruth could say nothing in reply, it was fortunate that at the moment
she had nothing to say. She continued to mix a little pool of Prussian
blue and Italian pink without looking up.

"I hurt my gun hand after luncheon, and had to stop shooting at Croxton
corner. As I went back to Slumberleigh, across the fields below the
rectory, I thought I saw you in the distance, and followed you."

"Is your hand much hurt?"--with sudden anxiety.

"No," said Charles, reddening a little. "It will stop my shooting for a
day or two, but that is all."