ed all your life in towns you are
not accustomed... I've got a little," she gasped painfully, "stitch in
my side! It will soon be gone."

The grey hue of her face showed only too plainly the explanation of that
stitch. Miggles knew it herself, but, as ever, preferred to make light
of her ailments. She leant on Piers's arm, glancing affectionately in
his face, and made no objections when Vanna came forward to support her
on the other side.

"I _am_ honoured! Quite a triumphal procession!" she gasped, with blue
lips.

The two schoolboys had scampered off to join in the chase. Jean was
preparing to follow Miggles and her supporters, when a hand was laid on
her arm, and Robert Gloucester's voice spoke in her ear:

"You and I are going on to the wood."

Jean jerked herself free with a haughty air.

"Excuse me, I am going home. I must look after Miss Miggs."

"Miss Miggs has plenty of helpers. She doesn't need you. I do. Be
kind to me, Jean. I've waited so long."

So long! It was not yet a fortnight since he had arrived in England;
but time has different values, as Jean had discovered for herself.
These last days had counted for more in life than all the years which
had gone before. She looked for one moment into the brown eyes bent
upon her, then hastily lowered her lids. But she turned down hill in
the direction of the wood. There was nothing in the world so mad or
impossible that she could have refused Robert Gloucester when he looked
at her with his clear eyes lighted by that flame.

They walked in silence along the quiet lane, golden with buttercups,
into the cool shadow of the wood. "Now!" said Jean's heart, beating
painfully against her side. "Now!" She was not unversed in occasions
of the kind, and as a rule had no difficulty in "heading off" her suitor
by a baffling flow of conversation, but to-day no words would come. She
looked at the soft carpet of moss beneath her feet; she looked at the
branches overhead; she looked down the gladelike vista, and saw ahead a
green space encircled by trees--a sunlit, sun-kissed space, doubly
bright from contrast with the surrounding shade. "There!" said the
voice in her heart. "It will be there." It seemed fitting that Robert
Gloucester should tell his love in the light and the sun.

Right into the centre of the sunny space they walked, and as by a mutual
impulse halted, face to face. For once Robert's radiant calm was
eclipsed. Before the treme