hrough
the Gloucestershire lanes; if they had dreamed that such a thing was
within the bounds of human possibility, what a tumult would have been
roused among them; how they would have stared at each other, with
mouths open, uttering exclamatory oaths of wild amazement and ecstatic
triumph; how they would have exulted and drunk each other's healths
and their wild playmate's and her splendid fortunes. But, in truth,
that such a thing could be, would have seemed to them as likely as that
Queen Anne herself should cast a gracious eye upon a poor, fox-hunting,
country baronet who was one of her rustic subjects. The riot of
Wildairs and its company was a far cry indeed from Camylott and St.
James.

If my Lord Twemlow had guessed at the possibility of the strange thing,
and had found himself confronting a solution of his carking problem
which would flood its past with brilliance and illuminate all its
future with refulgent light, casting a glow of splendour even over his
own plain country gentleman's existence, how he would have started and
flushed with bewildered pride and rubbed his periwig awry in his
delighted excitement. If my Lord Dunstanwolde, sitting at that hour in
his silent library, a great book open before him, his forehead on his
slender veined hand, his thoughts wandering far away, if he had been
given by Fate an inkling of the truth which none knew or suspected, or
had reason for suspecting, perhaps he would have been the most startled
and struck dumb of all--the most troubled and amazed and shocked.

But of such a thing no one dreamed, as, indeed, why should they, and my
lord Duke of Osmonde rode over the border into Gloucestershire on his
fine beast, and, trotting-up the roads and down the lanes, wore a look
upon his face which showed him deep in thought.

'Twas a grey day, unbrightened by any sun. For almost a week there had
been rain, and the roads were heavy and the lanes muddy and full of
pools of miry water.

It was the intention of my lord Duke to let his horse carry him over
such roads and lands as would be in the near neighbourhood of Wildairs,
and while he recognised the similarity of his action to that of a
school-boy in love, who paces the street before his sweetheart's
dwelling, there was no smile at himself, either on his countenance or
in his mind.

"I may see her," he said quietly to himself. "I am more like to catch
sight of her on these roads than on any other, and, school-boy trick or