rode by at
full speed--bowed coldly--and then at ten yards' distance turned and
waved a white-gloved hand, with a charming smile. Maurice swore softly,
and went indoors to think.

His work went but slowly on that day--and in the days that followed. On
the next Friday he went over to Rochester, and in the dusk of the
evening he walked along the road, about a mile from "The Yews," and
then, going slowly, he cast handfuls of something dark from his hand,
and kicked the white dust over it as it lay.

"I feel like the enemy sowing tares," said he.

Then he went home, full of anxious anticipation. The next day was hot
and bright. He took his armchair into the nightmare of a verandah, and
sat there reading; only above the top of the book his eyes could follow
the curve of the white road. This made it more difficult to follow the
text. Presently the bicyclists began to go past, by ones and twos and
threes; but a certain percentage was wheeling its machines--others
stopped within sight to blow up their tyres. One man sat down under the
hedge thirty yards away, and took his machine to pieces; presently he
strolled up and asked for water. Brent gave it, in a tin basin,
grudgingly, and without opening the gate.

"I overdid it," he said, "a quarter of a pound would have been enough;
yet I don't know--perhaps it's well to be on the safe side. Yet three
pounds was perhaps excessive."

Late in the afternoon a pink figure wheeling a bicycle came slowly down
the road. He sat still, and tried to read. In a moment he should hear
the click of the gate: then he would spring up and be very much
astonished. But the gate did not click, and when next he raised his eyes
the pink blouse had gone by, and was almost past the end of the five
acres. Then he did spring up--and ran.

"Miss Redmayne, can't I help you? What is it? Have you had a spill?" he
said as he overtook her.

"Puncture," said she laconically.

"You're very unfortunate. Mayn't I help you to mend it?"

"I'll mend it as soon as I get to a shady place."

"Come into the wilderness. See--here's the side gate. I'll fetch some
water in a moment."

She looked at him doubtfully, and then consented. She refused tea, but
she stayed and talked till long after the bicycle was mended.

On the following Saturday he walked along the road, and back, and along,
and again the place was alive with angry cyclists dealing, each after
his fashion, with a punctured tyre. He came upon Miss Re