bubbling, "but you've just got to.
You'll thank me afterwards."

Fiercely as he protested his innocence, Anthony felt extremely guilty.
He had, it seemed, committed a breach of good taste, which must be
repaired forthwith. He determined to be very nice to Anne. This
should not have been difficult, for she was full of good points.

Fate had not been kind, but Anne found no fault with her heritage.
Indeed, her temper was infectiously healthy. For years now Fortune had
never piped to her, but that did not keep her from dancing. In the
circumstances, that she should have been so good to look upon seemed
almost hard....

The two passed on.

It was a way Anthony had never gone, and, once in the thick of the
woods, he could not have told where he was. Anne, apparently, knew her
line backwards, for she climbed steadily, chattering all the time and
taking odd paths and random grass-grown tracks with an unconscious
confidence which was almost uncanny. More than once she turned to
strike across some ground no foot had charted, each time unerringly to
find the track upon the far side waiting to point them
upward--sometimes gently, and sometimes with a sharp rise, but always
upward.

For all that, the pace his companion set was almost punishing, and
Anthony was on the point of pleading a respite, when--

"Almost there now," panted Miss Alison. "Round to the right here,
and----"

The rest of the sentence was lost upon Anthony, and is of no
consequence to us.

As he was rounding the corner, he had turned to whistle for Patch. For
two very excellent reasons the whistle was never delivered. The first
was that the Sealyham was only five paces in rear. The second was that
he was standing quite still in the middle of the path, wagging his tail
apologetically.

For a moment Anthony stared at him. Then he swung round, to find
himself face to face with a broad natural bank, some thirty feet high.

* * * * *

When Valerie French, who had come by way of the finger-post, saw Patch
dormant at the foot of the broad bank, she could have jumped for joy.

At the last minute rheumatism had laid its irreverent hand upon the
patrician muscles of Lady Touchstone's back, and the visit to Town had
been summarily postponed. Valerie, who should have been sorry, was
undeniably glad. She could not communicate with Anthony, but there was
a bare chance that she might do better than that. What afternoons he