"Don't, my dear, side with me. He will only say you have no sense of
religion either."

"Excuse me," said Rickie, perhaps he too was a little hungry,--"I never
suggested such a thing. I never would suggest such a thing. Why cannot
you understand my position? I almost feel it is that you won't."

"I try to understand your position night and day dear--what you mean,
what you like, why you came to Cadover, and why you stop here when my
presence is so obviously unpleasing to you."

"Luncheon is served," said Leighton, but he said it too late. They
discussed the beef and the moselle in silence. The air was heavy and
ominous. Even the Wonham boy was affected by it, shivered at times,
choked once, and hastened anew into the sun. He could not understand
clever people.

Agnes, in a brief anxious interview, advised the culprit to take a
solitary walk. She would stop near Aunt Emily, and pave the way for an
apology.

"Don't worry too much. It doesn't really matter."

"I suppose not, dear. But it seems a pity, considering we are so near
the end of our visit."

"Rudeness and Grossness matter, and I've shown both, and already I'm
sorry, and I hope she'll let me apologize. But from the selfish point of
view it doesn't matter a straw. She's no more to us than the Wonham boy
or the boot boy."

"Which way will you walk?"

"I think to that entrenchment. Look at it." They were sitting on the
steps. He stretched out his hand to Cadsbury Rings, and then let it rest
for a moment on her shoulder. "You're changing me," he said gently. "God
bless you for it."

He enjoyed his walk. Cadford was a charming village and for a time he
hung over the bridge by the mill. So clear was the stream that it seemed
not water at all, but some invisible quintessence in which the happy
minnows and the weeds were vibrating. And he paused again at the Roman
crossing, and thought for a moment of the unknown child. The line curved
suddenly: certainly it was dangerous. Then he lifted his eyes to the
down. The entrenchment showed like the rim of a saucer, and over
its narrow line peeped the summit of the central tree. It looked
interesting. He hurried forward, with the wind behind him.

The Rings were curious rather than impressive. Neither embankment was
over twelve feet high, and the grass on them had not the exquisite
green of Old Sarum, but was grey and wiry. But Nature (if she arranges
anything) had arranged that from them, at all events, there s