his hat.

"Shall I move farther back, madam?" he asked.

"Stay where you are," Wilhelmina answered shortly. Her eyes were fixed
upon the tall, lithe figure once more facing the bowler. The next ball
was the last of the over. Macheson played it carefully for a single, and
stood prepared for the bowling at the other end. He began by a graceful
cut for two, and followed it up by a square leg hit clean out of the
ground. For the next half an hour, the Thorpe villagers thoroughly
enjoyed themselves. Never since the days of one Foulds, a former
blacksmith, had they seen such an exhibition of hurricane hitting. The
fast bowler, knocked clean off his length, became wild and erratic. Once
he only missed Macheson's head by an inch, but his next ball was driven
fair and square out of the ground for six. The applause became frantic.

Wilhelmina was leaning back amongst the cushions of her carriage,
watching the game through half closed eyes, and with some apparent
return of her usual graceful languor. Nevertheless, she remained there,
and her eyes seldom wandered for a moment from the scene of play.
Beneath her apparent indifference, she was watching this young man with
an interest for which she would have found it hard to account, and which
instinct alone prompted her to conceal. It was a very ordinary scene,
after all, of which he was the dominant figure. She had seen so much of
life on a larger scale--of men playing heroic parts in the limelight of
a stage as mighty as this was insignificant. Yet, without stopping to
reason about it, she was conscious of a curious sense of pleasure in
watching the doings of this forceful young giant. With an easy
good-humoured smile, replaced every now and then with a grim look of
determination as he jumped out from the crease to hit, he continued his
victorious career, until a more frantic burst of applause than usual
announced that the match was won. Then Wilhelmina turned towards Stephen
Hurd, who was standing by the side of the carriage.

"You executed my commission," she asked, "respecting that young man?"

"The first thing this morning," he answered. "I went up to see Mrs.
Foulton, and I also spoke to him."

"Did he make any difficulty?"

"None at all!" the young man answered.

"What did he say?"

Stephen hesitated, but Wilhelmina waited for his reply. She had the air
of one remotely interested, yet she waited obviously to hear what this
young man had said.

"I think he said s