ached a place at which a by-road
branched off, through a wood, from the highway which they had hitherto
followed. Mrs. Lewson found a seat on a felled tree. "We had better not
go any farther," she said.

Iris asked if there was any reason for this.

There was an excellent reason. A few yards farther on, the high road
had been diverted from the straight line (in the interest of a large
agricultural village), and was then directed again into its former
course. The by-road through the wood served as a short cut, for
horsemen and pedestrians, from one divergent point to the other. It was
next to a certainty that Arthur would return by the short cut. But if
accident or caprice led to his preferring the highway, it was clearly
necessary to wait for him within view of both the roads.

Too restless to submit to a state of passive expectation, Iris proposed
to follow the bridle path through the wood for a little way, and to
return if she failed to see anything of Arthur. "You are tired," she
said kindly to her companion: "pray don't move."

Mrs. Lewson looked needlessly uneasy: "You might lose yourself, Miss.
Mind you keep to the path!"

Iris followed the pleasant windings of the woodland track. In the hope
of meeting Arthur she considerably extended the length of her walk. The
white line of the high road, as it passed the farther end of the wood,
showed itself through the trees. She turned at once to rejoin Mrs.
Lewson.

On her way back she made a discovery. A ruin which she had not
previously noticed showed itself among the trees on her left hand. Her
curiosity was excited; she strayed aside to examine it more closely.
The crumbling walls, as she approached them, looked like the remains of
an ordinary dwelling-house. Age is essential to the picturesque effect
of decay: a modern ruin is an unnatural and depressing object--and here
the horrid thing was.

As she turned to retrace her steps to the road, a man walked out of the
inner space enclosed by all that was left of the dismantled house. A
cry of alarm escaped her. Was she the victim of destiny, or the sport
of chance? There was the wild lord whom she had vowed never to see
again: the master of her heart--perhaps the master of her fate!

Any other man would have been amazed to see her, and would have asked
how it had happened that the English lady presented herself to him in
an Irish wood. This man enjoyed the delight of seeing her, and accepted
it as a blessing tha