flying man, and the roaring, laughing, whip-cracking
squires after him! He will remember how Tom Appleton the wrestler, who
did something foul, was escorted across the county line last summer.
And Ulfar hates a scene. Can you fancy him making himself the centre
of such an affair?"

So they talked while Brune galloped homeward in a very happy mood. He
felt as those ancients may have felt when they met the Immortals and
saluted them. The thought of the beautiful Mrs. Sandys filled his
imagination; but he talked comfortably to Aspatria, and assured her
that there was now no fear of a meeting between her husband and Will.
"Only," he said, "tell Will yourself to-night, and he will never doubt
you."

Unfortunately, Will did not return that night from the Frosthams'; for
in the morning the two men were to go together to Dalton very early.
Will heard nothing there, but Mrs. Frostham was waiting at her garden
gate to tell him when he returned. He had left Squire Frostham with
his son-in-law, and was alone. Mrs. Frostham made a great deal of the
information, and broke it to Will with much consideration. Will heard
her sullenly. He was getting a few words ready for Aspatria, as Mrs.
Frostham told her tale, but they were for her alone. To Mrs. Frostham
he adopted a tone she thought very ungrateful.

For when the whole affair, real and consequential, had been told, he
answered: "What is there to make a wonder of? Cannot a woman talk and
walk a bit with her own husband? Maybe he had something very
particular to say to her. I think it is a shame to bother a little
lass about a thing like that."

And he folded himself so close that Mrs. Frostham could neither
question nor sympathize with him longer. "Good-evening to you," he
said coldly; and then, while visible, he took care to ride as if quite
at his ease. But the moment the road turned from Frostham he whipped
his horse to its full speed, and entered the farmyard with it in a
foam of hurry, and himself in a foam of passion.

Aspatria met him with the confession on her lips. He gave her no time.
He assailed her with affronting and injurious epithets. He pushed her
hands and face from him. He vowed her tears were a mockery, and her
intention of confessing a lie. He met all her efforts at explanation,
and all her attempts to pacify him, at sword-point.

She bore it patiently for a while; and then Will Anneys saw an
Aspatria he had never dreamed of. She seemed to grow taller; she