e, their first meeting; how she had come in,
hot and dishevelled--or at any rate feeling it--after a long scramble
with the two small boys away over the veldt--to find, all unexpectedly,
the man of whom she had heard so much as her father's--then--intimate
friend. She remembered every line of the expression of the clear-cut,
high-bred face, the look of admiration that had momentarily leapt into
his eyes directly they rested upon her--hot and dishevelled--in
straight, kindly glance; the tall, fine proportions of his frame, the
courteous, interested conversation in which he had engaged her. She
went over the hiatus of their prompt confidence and growing mutual
interest, until--a certain evening, when standing together under the
radiant moon amid the fragrant breaths of night--an evening which seemed
specially created for such an object--their love had, as it were,
_rushed_ together and declared itself as one--yes, as one from the very
first. For a brief time life had been a perfectly uninterrupted
Paradise, and that to both--and then--and then--trouble, care--black
care--had stolen in more and more, but--through it all, love was ever
the same, ever undimmed, indeed if possible refined and winnowed by the
prospect of adversity. No--assuredly there was no room for unhappiness
in Lalante's present any more than in her past. The cloud hung heavy,
but it would surely lift. It must. It should.

"Who the devil is this?"

The girl started from her day-dream, and turned quickly. In the doorway
behind her stood her father, a pair of binoculars in his hand. Then she
looked in the direction in which under the circumstance she naturally
would look.

Away, where the road topped the ridge, two horsemen were riding; and
they were approaching the house. They might have been merely passers-by
certainly, but the girl's true instinct informed her that it was not so,
and her heart beats quickened. Yet--why _two_?

"One of 'em's Warren," pronounced Le Sage, with the glasses at his eyes.
"And the other--why, damn it! it's--it's that fellow, Wyvern."

This staccato. Lalante, rising, saw that her father's face had paled,
and the hands that held the binoculars shook.

"Now, dear," she adjured, putting a hand round his shoulder. "Don't
lose yourself, and remember he may have some particular object in
wanting to see you. He has never been here since, and it's quite
possible that he has. Now do receive him with common civility.