orld at her. She is consequently to be the
young bride she was on the memorable morning of the drive off these
heights of Croridge down to thirty-acre meadow! It must be a saint to
forgive such offences; and she is not one, she is deliciously not one,
neither a Genevieve nor a Griselda. He handed her the rod to chastise
him. Her exchange of Christian names with the Welshman would not do it;
she was too transparently sisterly, provincially simple; she was, in
fact, respected. Any whipping from her was child's play to him, on whom,
if he was to be made to suffer, the vision of the intense felicity of
austerest asceticism brought the sensation as bracingly as the Boreal
morning animates men of high blood in ice regions. She could but gently
sting, even if vindictive.

Along the heights, outside the village, some way below a turn of the
road to Lekkatts, a gentleman waved hand. The earl saluted with his
whip, and waited for him.

'Nothing wrong, Mr. Wythan?'

'Nothing to fear, my lord.'

'I get a trifle uneasy.'

'The countess will not leave her brother.'

A glow of his countess's friendliness for this open-faced,
prompt-speaking, good fellow of the faintly inky eyelids, and possibly
sheepish inclinations, melted Fleetwood. Our downright repentance of
misconduct toward a woman binds us at least to the tolerant recognition
of what poor scraps of consolement she may have picked up between then
and now--when we can stretch fist in flame to defy it on the oath of her
being a woman of honour.

The earl alighted and said: 'Her brother, I suspect, is the key of the
position.'

'He's worth it--she loves her brother,' said Mr. Wythan, betraying a
feature of his quick race, with whom the reflection upon a statement is
its lightning in advance.

Gratified by the instant apprehension of his meaning, Fleetwood
interpreted the Welshman's. 'I have to see the brother worthy of her
love. Can you tell me the hour likely to be convenient?'.....

Mr. Wythan thought an appointment unnecessary which conveyed the
sufficient assurance of audience granted.

'You know her brother well, Mr. Wythan?'

'Know him as if I had known him for years. They both come to the mind as
faith comes--no saying how; one swears by them.'

Fleetwood eyed the Welsh gentleman, with an idea that he might readily
do the same by him.

Mr. Wythan's quarters were at the small village inn, whither he was on
his way to breakfast. The earl slipped an arm throu