from him.
Friends of hers had written to him after her death of beautiful
traits and qualities in her of which he himself had known nothing.
In any case they were not traits and qualities which appealed in the
long run to a man of his pursuits and temperament. He was told that
Pamela had inherited some of them.

A light rustling sound in the wood. He looked up to see Elizabeth
coming back towards him unaccompanied. Captain Dell and Sir Henry
seemed to have left her.

A thrill of excitement ran through him. They were alone in the
depths of the spring woodland. What better opportunity would he ever
have?

CHAPTER XIV

Elizabeth was coming back in that flushed mood when an able man or
woman who begins to feel the tide of success or power rising beneath
them also begins to remind himself or herself of all the old
commonplaces about Fate or Chance. Elizabeth's Greek reading had
steeped her in them. 'Count no man happy till his death'; 'Count
nothing finished till the end'; tags of this kind were running
through her mind, while she smiled a little over the compliments
that Sir Henry had been paying her.

He could not express, he said, the relief with which he had heard of
her return to Mannering. 'Don't, please, go away again!' Everybody
in the county who was at all responsible for its war-work felt the
same. Her example, during the winter, had been invaluable, and the
skill with which she had brought the Squire into line, and set the
Squire's neglected estate on the road to food-production, had
been--in Sir Henry's view--nothing short of a miracle.

'Yes, a miracle, my dear lady!' repeated Sir Henry warmly. 'I know
the prickliness of our good friend there! I speak to you
confidentially, because I realize that you could not possibly have
done what you have done unless you had won the Squire's
confidence--his complete confidence. Well, that's an achievement, I
can tell you--as bad as storming a redoubt. Go on--don't let go!
What you are doing here--the kind of work you are doing--is of
national importance. God only knows what lies before us in the next
few months!'

And therewith a sudden sobering of the ruddy countenance and
self-important manner. For a few seconds, from his mind and
Elizabeth's there vanished all consciousness of the English woodland
scene, and they were looking over a flayed and ravaged country where
millions of men stood ranged for battle.

Sir Henry sighed.

'Thank God, Arthur is s