a drain. The usual end. What was the joke?" asked the nearest man. Rackham pulled out his yellow silk handkerchief, and twisted it round his throat. He was hot, and the air was clammy. With that, and his wild eyes, and his sandy moustache, he looked like a handsome bandit.

"It's turning cold," he said. "What? Didn't you hear the plaintive toot of a motor lying in wait for the man who sells pills? I'm morally certain the millionaire is feebly chasing his hunter round and round that big field with the mole-hills in it, miles and miles behind. I suppose the chauffeur had his orders; but it would be a charity to hint that following hounds is the worst way to pick up his master."

"Didn't somebody catch his horse?"

"Oh, I did, and chucked him the reins; but I didn't see him get on to him. I'll bet the idiot let him go."

"Do him good. He'll probably sit on a gate and pass the time inventing another pill."

"Awful if he's benighted, and all the ghosts of all who swallowed the other pills pop up screeching——!"

"Poor devil; he will have a time of it, with the mole-hills and the thistles, and all those ghosts."

The picture called up was upsetting to the general gravity, and they dispersed, chuckling in the increasing twilight. A division made for the turnpike, with here and there an individual branching courageously into a bridle road; and the larger half halted under a signpost that stretched illegible arms east and west in the lane. It was pleasant to linger a minute or two, lighting up, guessing at their direction. But Rackham kept on.

"That's not your way, Rackham," one man called after him.

The match flickered at his cigar, and went out as he threw it in the road. His horse was walking on with his head down, guided by the rider's knees.

"Right," he shouted back. "It isn't. Is that you, Parsley? I nearly jumped on you, didn't I?"

"You did," said one of the dawdling group. "He has been complaining."

"Well, if a fellow will sit down unexpectedly before you, like a hen under a motor, how can you dodge him? Teach that lazy brute of yours to lift up his hind legs, Parsley. Do you never hit him?"

"I say," called the first man. "Come back. Where are you going?" But Rackham pursued his wrong road untroubled.

"He can make Melton that way, if he likes," said one of those who were looking after him. "I daresay he means to call in on Lady Henrietta. He told me he had a message from her, asking him to come over, but he wasn't going to miss a day's hunting to see what she was up to."

"I thought they were at daggers drawn."

"In a manner of speaking," said the first, dropping his voice a little; "but outwardly they are civil. Of course, she hates him coming in for poor Barnaby's property, and I know he was at the bottom of that row that made Barnaby rush abroad."

"Ah, I remember, Rackham flirted furiously with Julia——"

They edged instinctively nearer to each other, snatching at an enlivening bit of gossip as they jogged on together with the bats swooping overhead.

"No mistake about that. And she let Barnaby see plainly that she was ready to drop her bone for—his cousin. Of course, Rackham is a bigger match. She's one of these women who can't perceive that titles are getting vulgar."

"Rum chap, Rackham. I can't quite make him out. What did he do it for?"

"He owed Barnaby one, perhaps. I don't think he was fond of Julia. Anyhow, he didn't rise to her expectations; and so she relapsed, and repented, and trails about now like a mourning bride. Poor old Barnaby; he'll be missed.... And we'll never hear what wild things he did out there."

"Desperate sort of cure, to disappear in the backwoods, and never call on his bankers. Just like him though.—But he shouldn't have got himself killed in a scuffle in some outlandish quarter, and spoilt the yarn."

The man next him grunted.

"Who started the rumour that it wasn't an accident," he inquired; "but that life without Julia wasn't worth tuppence to him, and so—and so——?"

"Shut up, Parsley. Don't you circulate it," put in his neighbour hastily. "Heaven send Lady Henrietta hasn't got hold of that."

"By George, if the tale came to her ears——!"

The last man mended his pace. He had hung back a little.

"Rackham's bearing to the right," he struck in. "You can hear the horse trotting on the hill. He must be turning in to see Lady Henrietta. I wonder what on earth she wants him for. It was a rather portentous message."

They had reached a rougher bit of road and their voices grew indistinct, drowned in a tired clatter of horses' hoofs, and died away in the distance.

Rackham himself could not guess the reason for Lady Henrietta's summons. Latterly there had been war between him and his aunt. Something must have happened to mitigate the rigour of her ban, but he rather fancied the circumstances must be uncommon that could accomplish that. He was curious, and not the less so when, having left his horse to a bucket of gruel, he walked stiffly across from the stables, and letting himself in at the hall door, found himself face to face with another visitor, who had just arrived and was slipping off her furs.

"Julia!" he said, taken aback at her presence in this house. She acknowledged his amazement with a trickling laugh. Her voice had a note of melancholy importance.

"Is it so unnatural," she said reproachfully, "that you should find me here?"

The man bit his lip, looking at her. To him there was humour in her romantic pose.

They had once been so well acquainted—though lately she had affected short-sightedness when she saw him—that he imagined he understood her. He rather admired an invincible vanity that had ignored disappointment and defied scoffing tongues by making this bid for public sympathy. It was a brilliant move, but he had never thought it would impose on Lady Henrietta, that worldly woman with a hot corner in her heart for anybody who could squeeze in, but an implacable spirit. She had held out stubbornly up to now.

"Well—I don't know," he said, hesitating, swallowing his amusement.

Julia lifted her tragic eyes to his. Perhaps she was not sorry he should witness her recognition in this house. The trailing black garments that she was wearing for Barnaby lent a majestic sweep to her full outlines, and there was a kind of bloom on her cheeks. She reminded one of a big purple pansy.

The butler, an old family servant, one of those that know too much, had closed the great door, shutting out the wind and the stormy sky, already night-ridden; and was now waiting discreetly in the background. Rackham nodding to him, remarked a curious twinkle on his face, but when he looked again it was wooden.

"I knew she would send for me at last," crowed Julia. "People called her selfish and cruel, but I told everybody I understood. I told them to give her time. It must be so difficult for her to realise that someone else was closer to poor Barnaby than even she. How could she help feeling, at first, a little jealousy of my grief?"

"I was sent for, too," said Rackham bluntly. "She said she had something to show me."

"Poor dear!" said Julia. "How touching that she should think of it. You were his cousin, and she wants you to witness her do me justice."

The man smiled to himself at her manner of glancing backwards at their fellowship in disgrace. Was it possible that his aunt had really made up her mind to forget and forgive, and fall upon Julia's neck? He felt a twinge of something like shame.

"We mustn't keep her waiting," said Julia. "Is she in the library, Macdonald? That is where she used to sit...."

Already she was assuming her ancient intimacy with the ways of the house, and the servant made way for her as she passed him, traversing the hall with a mournful swagger.

Lady Henrietta was knitting hard.

She sat in a deep sofa by the fire, turned so that it faced the hangings that