he horse, and led it back the way it had come. As he
turned the bend in the road, he saw a girl in a riding-habit running
toward him. She stopped running when she caught sight of him, and
slowed down to a walk.

"Thank you ever so much," she said, taking the reins from him.
"Dandy, you naughty old thing! I got off to pick up my crop, and he
ran away."

Jimmy looked at her flushed, smiling face, and stood staring.

It was Molly McEachern.

CHAPTER XII

MAKING A START

Self-possession was one of Jimmy's leading characteristics, but for
the moment he found himself speechless. This girl had been occupying
his thoughts for so long that--in his mind--he had grown very
intimate with her. It was something of a shock to come suddenly out
of his dreams, and face the fact that she was in reality practically
a stranger. He felt as one might with a friend whose memory has been
wiped out. It went against the grain to have to begin again from the
beginning after all the time they had been together.

A curious constraint fell upon him.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Pitt?" she said, holding out her hand.

Jimmy began to feel better. It was something that she remembered his
name.

"It's like meeting somebody out of a dream," said Molly. "I have
sometimes wondered if you were real. Everything that happened that
night was so like a dream."

Jimmy found his tongue.

"You haven't altered," he said, "you look just the same."

"Well," she laughed, "after all, it's not so long ago, is it?"

He was conscious of a dull hurt. To him, it had seemed years. But he
was nothing to her--just an acquaintance, one of a hundred. But what
more, he asked himself, could he have expected? And with the thought
came consolation. The painful sense of having lost ground left him.
He saw that he had been allowing things to get out of proportion. He
had not lost ground. He had gained it. He had met her again, and she
remembered him. What more had he any right to ask?

"I've crammed a good deal into the time," he explained. "I've been
traveling about a bit since we met."

"Do you live in Shropshire?" asked Molly.

"No. I'm on a visit. At least, I'm supposed to be. But I've lost the
way to the place, and I am beginning to doubt if I shall ever get
there. I was told to go straight on. I've gone straight on, and here
I am, lost in the snow. Do you happen to know whereabouts Dreever
Castle is?"

She laughed.

"Why," she said, "I am staying