n the wall.

"I'm sorry if I annoyed you just now, Syl," he said. "That dashed
little detective is to blame. He does put things in such a beastly
unpleasant way."

"What things?"

"Why, about you and me and all of us. Gave me a regular lecture
because I went back to town this morning. I couldn't help it, old
girl. I really couldn't. I had to settle some urgent business, but
that's all ended now. The pater's death has steadied me. No more
gallivanting off to London for me. Settle down in Roxton, Board of
Guardians on Saturdays, church on Sunday, tea and tennis at the
vicarage, and 'you-come-to-our-place-tomorrow.' You know the sort of
thing--old-fashioned, respectable and comfy. I'll sell my motor bike
and start a car. Motor bikes make a fellow a bit of a vagabond--eh,
what? They _will_ go the pace. You can't stop 'em. Fifty per, and be
hanged to the police, that's their motto."

"It sounds idyllic," the girl forced herself to say lightly, but her
teeth met with a snap, and her fingers gripped the rough surface of
the stones, for she remembered how Trenholme had said of her that she
"reveled in the sunlight, in the golden air, in the scents of trees
and shrubs and flowering grasses."

There was a musical cadence in her voice that restored Robert's surly
good humor; he was of that peculiar type of spoiled youth whose laugh
is a guffaw and whose mirth ever holds a snarl.

"Here comes your paint slinger," he said. "Wonder if he really can
stage a decent picture. If so, when the present fuss is ended we'll
get him to do a group. You and me and the keepers and dogs in front
of the Warren Covert, next October, after a big drive. How would that
be?"

"I'm sure Mr. Trenholme will feel flattered."

When Trenholme approached he was not too well pleased to find Miss
Manning in charge of a new cavalier.

From items gathered earlier in the village he guessed the newcomer's
identity. Perhaps he expected that the girl would offer an
introduction, but she only smiled pleasantly and said:

"You must have hurried. I do hope I haven't put you to any
inconvenience?"

"Eliza informed me that she had just popped my chicken in the oven,
so there is plenty of time," he said. "I suppose it makes one hot
to be constantly popping things into ovens. In the course of years
one should become a sort of salamander. Have you ever read the
autobiography of that great artist and very complete rascal, Benvenuto
Cellini? He is the last perso