need not think. Whether anyone else got hurt in the process was a
question that never presented itself to her.

She had not expected to find amusement at Stockleigh. She had been
driven there by an overmastering desire to escape from London--for a
few weeks, at least, to get right away from her accustomed life and from
everyone who knew her. And at Stockleigh she had found Dan Storran.

The homage that had leaped into his eyes the first moment they had
rested on her, and which had slowly deepened as the days slipped by, had
somehow soothed her, restoring her feminine poise which Michael's sudden
defection had shaken.

She knew--as every woman always does know when a man is attracted by
her--that she had the power to stir this big, primitive countryman,
whose way of life had never before brought him into contact with her
type of woman, just as she had stirred other men. And she carelessly
accepted the fact, without a thought that in playing with Dan Storran's
emotions she was dealing with a man who knew none of the moves of
the game, to whom the art of love-making as a pastime was an unknown
quantity, and whose fierce, elemental passions, once aroused, might
prove difficult to curb. He amused her and kept her thoughts off recent
happenings, and for the moment that was all that mattered.

CHAPTER XI

STORRAN OF STOCKLEIGH

It was a glorious morning. The sun blazed like a great golden shield out
of a cloudless sky, and hardly a breath of air stirred the foliage of
the trees.

Magda, to content an insatiable Coppertop, had good-naturally suffered
herself to be dragged over the farm. They had visited the pigs--a new
and numerous litter of fascinating black ones having recently made their
debut into this world of sin--and had watched the cows being milked,
and been chased by the irascible gander, and finally, laughing and
breathless, they had made good their escape into the garden where
Gillian sat sewing, and had flung themselves down exhaustedly on the
grass at her feet.

"I'm in a state of mental and moral collapse, Gilly," declared Magda,
fanning herself vigorously with a cabbage leaf. "Whew! It is hot! As
soon as I can generate enough energy, I propose to bathe. Will you
come?"

Gillian shook her head lazily.

"I think not to-day. I want to finish this overall for Coppertop. And
it's such a long trudge from here down to the river."

"Yes, I know." Magda nodded. "It's three interminable fields away--and