ound them the
bluebells lay glowing in the sunshine. The colour and sparkle of them
was a physical delight; and with occasional lingering tufts of primroses
among them and the young oak scrub pushing up through the blue in every
shade of gold and bronze, they made an enchanted garden of the glade.

Falloden dismounted, tied up his horse, and gathered a bunch for his
companion.

"I don't know--ought we?" she said regretfully. "They are not so
beautiful when they are torn away. And in a week they will be
gone--withered!"

She stooped over them, caressing them, as, taking a strap from the
pocket of his own saddle, he tied the flowers to her pommel.

He looked up impetuously.

"Only to spring again!--in this same wood--in other woods--for us to
see. Do you ever think how full the world is of sheer pleasure--small
and great?" And his eyes told her plainly what his pleasure was at
that moment.

Something jarred. She drew herself away, though with fluttering pulses.
Falloden, with a strong effort, checked the tide of impulse in himself.
He mounted again, and suggested a gallop, through a long stretch of
green road on the further side of the glade. They let their horses go,
and the flying hoof-beats woke the very heart of the wood.

"That was good!" cried Falloden, as they pulled up, drawing in deep
draughts of the summer wind. Then he looked at her admiringly.

"How well you hold yourself! You are a perfect rider!"

Against her will Constance sparkled under his praise. Then they turned
their horses towards the keeper's cottage, and the sun fell lower in
the west.

"Mr. Falloden," said Constance presently, "I want you to promise me
something."

"Ask me," he said eagerly.

"I want you to give up ragging Otto Radowitz!"

His countenance changed.

"Who has been talking to you?"

"That doesn't matter. It is unworthy of you. Give it up."

Falloden laughed with good humour.

"I assure you it does him a world of good!"

She argued hotly; astonished, in her young inexperience, that his will
could so soon reassert itself against hers; sharply offended, indeed,
that after she had given him the boon of this rendezvous, he could
hesitate for a moment as to the boon she asked in return--had humbled
herself to ask. For had she not often vowed to herself that she would
never, never ask the smallest favour of him; while on her side a diet of
refusals and rebuffs was the only means to keep him in check?

But that diet