undergrowth, and the first whip crashed out of the cover, his horse stumbling as he landed, but recovering himself cleverly.
"Have they killed?" several voices called.
"No, worse luck—gone to ground," the hunt servant answered, and Dulcie, close beside me, exclaimed in a tone of exultation:
"Oh, good!"
I had dismounted, loosened my mare's girths, and turned her nose to the light breeze. Sweat was pouring off her, and she was still blowing hard.
"Shall I unmount you, Dulcie?" I asked.
She nodded, and presently she stood beside me while I attended to her horse.
"Ah, Mrs. Stapleton!" I heard her exclaim suddenly.
I had loosened the girths of Dulcie's horse, and now I looked up.
Seated upon a black thoroughbred, an exceedingly beautiful young woman gazed down with flushed face and shining eyes.
It was a rather strange face, all things considered. The features were irregular, yet small and refined. The eyes were bright and brown—at least not exactly brown; rather they were the colour of a brilliant red-brown wallflower, and large and full of expression. Her skin, though extremely clear, was slightly freckled.
Dulcie had exchanged a few remarks with her. Now she turned to me.
"Mike," she said, "I want to introduce you to Mrs. Stapleton. Mrs. Stapleton, do you know Mr. Berrington?"
The beautiful young widow, gazing down at me as I looked up at her and raised my hat, presently made some complimentary remark about my mount and the way she jumped, then added:
"I noticed her all through the run—she's just the stamp of animal I have been looking for. Is she for sale, by any chance, Mr. Berrington?"
I replied that the mare was not mine, that she must ask Miss Challoner or Sir Roland. For the instant it struck me as odd that, hunting regularly with this pack, she should not have recognized the animal, for I knew that Dulcie rode it frequently. Then I remembered that some people can no more recognize horses than they can recognize their casual friends when they meet them in the street, and the thought faded.
There was talk of digging out the fox—an operation which Dulcie and I equally detested—and that, added to the knowledge that we were many miles from Holt, also that our horses had had enough, made us decide to set out for home.
Looking back, for some reason, as we walked our horses away from the cover-side towards the nearest lane, I noticed the young widow seated erect upon her black horse, staring after us. I turned to shut the gate, after we had passed into the lane; she was still sitting there, outlined against the wood and apparently still staring in our direction.
Why, I don't know, but as I trotted quietly along the lane, to overtake Dulcie, whose horse was an exceptionally fast walker, I felt uneasy.
Presently my thoughts drifted into quite a different channel. All recollection of the day's sport, of the pretty widow I had just talked to, and of the impression she had left upon my mind, faded completely. I was thinking of someone else, someone close beside me, almost touching me, and yet—
Neither of us spoke. It was nearly four o'clock. The afternoon was quickly closing in. Away beyond the woods which sloped upward in the western distance until they touched the sky, the sun's blood-red beam pierced the slowly-rising mist rolling down into the valley where the pollards marked the winding course of the narrow, sluggish stream. Over brown woods and furrowed fields it cast a curious glow.
Now the light of the winter's sun, sinking still, fell full on my companion's face, I caught the outline of her profile, and my pulses seemed to quicken. Her hair was burnished gold. Her eyes shone strangely. Her expression, to my eyes, seemed to be entirely transformed. How young she looked at that instant, how absolutely, how indescribably attractive! Would she, I wondered, ever come to understand how deeply she had stolen into my heart? Until this instant I myself seemed not fully to have realized it.
Presently she turned her head. Her gaze rested on mine. Gravely, steadily, her wonderful brown eyes read—I firmly believe—what was in my soul: how madly I had come to love her. Without meaning to, I started. A sensation of thrilling expectancy took possession of me. I was approaching, I felt, the crisis of my life, the outcome of which must mean everything to both of us.
"You are very silent, Mike," she said in a low, and, as I thought, rather strained voice. "Is anything the matter?"
I swallowed before answering.
"Yes—something is the matter," I said limply.
"What?"
I caught my breath. How could she look into my eyes like that, ask that question—such a foolish question it seemed—as though I were naught to her but a stranger, or, at most, some merely casual acquaintance? Was it possible she realized nothing, suspected nothing, had no faint idea of the feeling I entertained for her?
"What is the matter?" she asked again, as I had not answered.
"Oh, it's something—well, something I can't well explain to you under the circumstances," I replied awkwardly, an anxious, hot feeling coming over me.
"Under what circumstances?"
"What circumstances!"
"Yes."
"This is our gap," I exclaimed hurriedly, as we came to a broken bank by the lane-side—I was glad of the excuse for not answering. I turned my mare's nose towards the bank, touched her with the spur, and at once she scrambled over.
Dulcie followed.
Around us a forest of pines, dark, motionless, forbidding, towered into the sky. To right and left moss-grown rides wound their way into the undulating cover, becoming tunnels in the distance as they vanished into blackness, for the day was almost spent.
Slowly we turned into the broader of the two rides. We still rode side by side. Still neither of us spoke. Now the moss beneath our horses' hoofs grew so thick and soft that their very footfalls became muffled.
Ten minutes must have passed. In the heart of the dense wood all was still as death, save for a pheasant's evening crow, and the sudden rush of a rabbit signalling danger to its companions.
"What circumstances, Mike?" Dulcie repeated. She spoke in a strange tone. Her voice was very low, as though she feared to break the silence which surrounded us.
Taken aback, I hesitated. We were very close together now—my leg touched her horse. Already, overhead in a moonless sky, the stars shone brightly. In the growing gloom her face was visible, though partly blurred.
"Why not stop here a moment?" I said, hardly knowing that I spoke, or why I spoke. My mouth had grown suddenly dry. The timbre of my voice somehow founded different. Without answering she shortened her reins, and her horse was still.
Why had we stopped? Why had I suggested our stopping? I saw her, in the darkness, turn her face to mine, but she said nothing.
"Dulcie!" I exclaimed suddenly, no longer able to control myself. Without knowing it I leant forward in my saddle. I could see her eyes, now. Her gaze was set on mine. Her lips were slightly parted. Her breast rose and fell.
Some strange, irresistible force seemed all at once to master me, deadening my will, my brain, my power of self-restraint. My arm was about her; I was drawing her towards me. I felt surprise that she should offer no resistance. My lips were pressed on hers….
She was kissing me feverishly, passionately. Her whole soul seemed to have become suddenly transformed. Her arms were about my neck—I could not draw away.
"Oh, Mike! Mike!" she gasped, "tell me you really mean it—that you are not just playing with me—flirting with me—tell me you … oh, I love you so, dearest. Ah, yes. I love you so, I love you so!"
It was very dark by the time we had made our way through the extensive wood—a short cut to Holt Manor—and were once more in the lanes, I felt strangely happy, and yet a curious feeling which I could neither explain nor account for obsessed me.
Our joy was