" had shown her how futile were such hopes.

Yet, there were only three months longer of this weary waiting. Surely
he could curb his impatience until she was of age and mistress of her
own hand! Surely he trusted her!

She sighed as this thought crossed her mind, and nearly fell up against
a dark figure which detached itself from among the trees.

"Master Lambert!" she said, uttering a little cry of surprise, pressing
her hand against her heart which was palpitating with emotion. "I had no
thought of meeting you here."

"And I still less of seeing your ladyship," he rejoined coldly.

"How cross you are," she retorted with childish petulance, "what have I
done that you should be so unkind?"

"Unkind?"

"Aye! I had meant to speak to you of this ere now--but you always avoid
me ... you scarce will look at me ... and ... and I wished to ask you if
I had offended you?"

They were standing on a soft carpet of moss, overhead the gentle summer
breeze stirred the great branches of the elms, causing the crisp leaves
to mutter a long-drawn hush-sh-sh in the stillness of the night. From
far away came the appealing call of a blackbird chased by some marauding
owl, while on the ground close by, the creaking of tiny branches
betrayed the quick scurrying of a squirrel. From the remote and infinite
distance came the subdued roar of the sea.

The peace of the woodland, the sighing of the trees, the dark evening
sky above, filled his heart with an aching longing for her.

"Offended me?" he murmured, passing his hand across his forehead, for
his temples throbbed and his eyes were burning. "Nay! why should you
think so?"

"You are so cold, so distant now," she said gently. "We were such good
friends when first I came here. Thanet is a strange country to me. It
seems weird and unkind--the woods are dark and lonely, that persistent
sound of the sea fills me with a strange kind of dread.... My home was
among the Surrey hills you know.... It is far from here.... I cannot
afford to lose a friend...."

She sighed, a quaint, wistful little sigh, curiously out of place, he
thought, in this exquisite mouth framed only for smiles.

"I have so few real friends," she added in a whisper, so low that he
thought she had not spoken, and that the elms had sighed that pathetic
phrase into his ear.

"Believe me, Lady Sue, I am neither cold nor distant," he said, almost
smiling now, for the situation appeared strange indeed, that this
beauti