down quite effectually.
I'm much obliged to you for interfering. And I'm sorry I used language,
but as the circumstances were exceptional, I hope you will make
allowances."

His tone was boyish still, but all the resentment had gone out of it.
There was a touch of arrogance in his bearing which was obviously natural
to him, but his apology was none the less sincere.

The slim figure on the path made a slight movement of dismay. "But you
must be drenched to the skin!" she said. "I was forgetting. Won't you
come in and get dry?"

He hunched his shoulders expressively. "No, thanks. It was my own fault,
as you kindly omit to mention. I must be getting back to the Abbey. My
grandfather is expecting me. He fidgets if I'm late."

He raised a hand to his cap, and would have turned away, but she made a
swift gesture of surprise, which arrested him. "Oh, you are young Mr.
Evesham!--I beg your pardon--you are Mr. Evesham! I thought I must have
seen you before!"

He stopped with a laugh. "I am commonly called 'Master Piers' in this
neighbourhood. They won't let me grow up. Rather a shame, what? I'm
nearly twenty-five, and the head-keeper still refers to me in private as
'that dratted boy.'"

She laughed for the first time. Possibly he had angled for that laugh.
"Yes, it is a shame!" she agreed. "But then Sir Beverley is rather old,
isn't he? No doubt it's the comparison that does it."

"He isn't old," said Piers Evesham in sharp contradiction. "He's only
seventy-four. That's not old for an Evesham. He'll go for another twenty
years. There's a saying in our family that if we don't die violently, we
never die at all." He pulled himself up abruptly. "I've given you my name
and history. Won't you tell me yours?"

She hesitated momentarily. "I am only the mother's help at the Vicarage,"
she said then.

"By Jove! I don't envy you." He looked at her with frank interest
notwithstanding. "I suppose you do it for a living," he remarked.
"Personally, I'd sooner sweep a crossing than live in the same house with
that mouthing parson."

"Hush!" she said, but her lips smiled as she said it, a small smile that
would not be denied. "I must go in now. Here you are!" She gave him back
his whip. "Good-bye! Get home quick--and change!"

He turned half-reluctantly; then paused. "You might tell me your name
anyway," he said.

She had begun to move away, light-footed, swift as a bird. She
also paused.

"My name is Denys," she said.

He