no use running; I've got to stop and
face it. What a confounded nuisance! nuisance! But it serves me right.
I've no business to be loafing about the place."

As the dogs came up, he put on that air of conciliation which we all
know, and murmuring "Good dog! All right, old chap!" tried to pacify
Donald and Bess. But they were not accustomed to intruders, especially
at that time of night, and they were legitimately furious. Dancing
round him, and displaying dazzling teeth threateningly, they drew
nearer and nearer, and they would certainly have sprung upon him; but
the girl came, not running, but quickly, down the steps and straight
across the dewy grass towards them, calling to the dogs as she came in
her clear, low voice, which had not a trace of fear in it. Their loud
barking changed to sullen growls as she approached; and, motioning them
to be still, she stopped and gazed at Stafford, who stepped out into
the moonlight.

She said not a word, but, as she recognised him, a faint colour came
into the ivory pallor of her cheek and an expression of surprise in the
dark, fearless eyes.

Stafford raised his cap.

"I am very sorry!" he said. "I am afraid you must think me a great
nuisance; this is the second time I have been guilty of trespass."

She was silent for a moment, not with shyness, but as if she were
noticing the change in his dress, and wondering how he came to be in
evening-clothes, and where he had come from. The expression was one of
simple girlish curiosity, which softened in a delicious way the general
pride and hauteur of her face.

"You are not trespassing," she said, and the voice sounded very sweet
and musical after the din of the dogs. "There is public right of way
along this road."

"I am immensely relieved," said Stafford. "It looks so unfrequented,
that I was afraid it was private, and that I had made another blunder;
all the same, I am very sorry that I should have disturbed you and made
the dogs kick up such a row. I would have gone on or gone back if I had
known you were coming out; but the place looked so quiet--"

"It does not matter," she said; "they bark at the slightest noise, and
we are used to it. The place is so quiet because only my father and I
live here, and there are only a few servants, and the place is so big."

All this was said not repiningly, but softly and a little dreamily. By
this time Donald and Bess had recovered their tempers, and after a
close inspection of the in