One night the two gentlemen sat over their wine in the dining-room at Castle Raincy, the Earl and Adam Ferris of Cairn Ferris, who had now fallen into the habit of coming every day to the Castle either for dinner or supper—dinner being, according to the fashion of the time, at two and supper at eight. Generally Adam came to supper. In this case he saw more of his daughter, and the old Lord found him right good company, thoughtful and well-informed. Besides, what was best of all, Adam was an excellent listener.

So, sitting toying with the stem of a wine glass, he heard for the twentieth time the tale of the Earl's early adventure with Gentleman Cornwallis—how they had vied with each other over neckcloths and fair ladies, how they had fought for three hours, as the Earl said "sticking each other here and there" without any great damage, neither able to get home, and finally how they had their wounds dressed by the same doctor before sitting down to ombre, each man with his bowl of gruel at his elbow, how they bet who should drink both bickers, and how it stood on one throw of the dice—how Cornwallis won, and he, Earl Raincy, duly performed his obligation.

Then came how they ordered in a second supply and played who should swallow that. The Gentleman won again, and he, Raincy, was so full of gruel that he had to have four strong footmen to carry him home!

"By gad, sir, so I was—drunk as an owl on gruel, damned slimy apothecaries' gruel. But I was the better of it, sir, and got well in a week, while Cornwallis had rash and erysipelas and all manner of trouble, because he did not do as his doctor told him! Served him right, say I!"

And at this point, without any announcement, Julian Wemyss suddenly stood before them. He was travel-stained and hollow of cheek. He had manifestly ridden far and hard.

"I beg your pardon, Earl Raincy," he said, bowing courteously, "for thus forcing my way into your presence. But it was necessary that I should at once speak to my brother-in-law, Mr. Adam Ferris. They told me he was here, so I came on."

The Earl welcomed him after saying that he had intended to call upon him at the Abbey Burnfoot as soon as he knew that he was home, he added, "You will find the wine good, Mr. Wemyss. I will now leave you to yourselves. By the way, can I send up anything from the kitchen?—A hungry man, you know, can do no business with a man well dined, as I warrant you Cairn Ferris has!"

But Julian Wemyss begged Lord Raincy to stay. What he had to say concerned him also, or at least his grandson, and all who were interested in Miss Patricia Ferris. As to supper, he had already had something at his own house, where his servant had been instructed to be ready for him.

But he took a glass of wine, and, after draining it, he said, speaking quietly and leaning a little towards the two gentlemen, "I have had the misfortune to kill my Lord Wargrove in a duel on Calais sands."

"Gad," said the Earl, "if it had only been his master! But so far, so good!"

"Why did you come back here?" put in Adam. "Why did you come back from France?"

"Because in France my work was only half done," Julian spoke gravely. "There was some one in London whom it was my duty to consult. Whatever happened it was necessary to risk a conference with ... that person. My Lord (here he turned abruptly upon Earl Raincy), Adam there is wholly incapable of bringing up Patsy as she ought. She runs the country—with the adventurous lads who play at smuggling. She comes and goes at her will and not a soul is disquieted about her."

The faint flicker of a smile passed over the cheek of the old Earl.

"Well, Mr. Wemyss," he said, "you have known more women than ever I spoke to—for all my frosty poll—and can you say on your conscience that there was ever a one of them more charming, sweeter, or more ladylike than your niece Miss Patricia?"

"That, my Lord, is not the question," said Julian, smiling also and shaking his head. "Patsy is all you say and more. But if she had been better trained and somewhat more under control, she would never have run like a hare to the Wild of Blairmore, the Duke of Lyonesse would have been spared the charge of buckshot in his haunch, and I should not have had the death of Lord Wargrove on my hands."

"Pooh," said the old Earl, "that is what every man runs the risk of. 'Tis not the first time you have held a foil. Who were your seconds?"

"Mine? Oh, Erskine and the Prince of Thurn and Taxis. I was not particularly keen about Erskine, but he has his relations with the court party and would report that all was done in loyalty on both sides. The other seconds? Why, Watford and Queensberry."

"You certainly gave him every chance," said the Earl, leaning back and considering Julian Wemyss, "they are all of his own kidney except the Prince—and him I do not know."

"Oh, the finest blade in Europe," cried Julian, more enthusiastically than he had yet spoken, "and ... a Prince of the Empire."

"I see," said Earl Raincy, "between the two of you, you could have accounted for an army of Duke's favourites!"

"Perhaps," said Julian Wemyss, "but to get back to what we were saying, the question is what are we to do with Patsy? I do not mean to spend my whole life in exile, and though we simply could not let Wargrove pass, we cannot go on fighting duels for the sake of this young woman. Besides, it is bad for Patsy."

"What do you propose, Julian?" said Adam. "I see you have come with a plan all ready made up your sleeve. Out with it, man!"

"Well, I have. There is a great lady in London who wishes to take Patsy and treat her as her own daughter—yes, a lady of the court, but not of the Regency court—the Princess Elsa-Frederica of Saxe-Brunswick—"

The Earl's eyes dropped suddenly upon the decanter. He put out his hand, and poured himself a glass. The name was that of one of the King's near relatives, married to the aged reigning prince of Saxe-Brunswick for reasons of State, but now returned to her family and living at Hanover Lodge close to Kew.

The two men at the table instantly found themselves on the verge of matters as it were within the veil. They looked uncomfortable, almost unhappy, as men do on these occasions. Only Julian Wemyss went on with his usual serenity.

"My friend offered to take the responsibility of Patsy off our hands. She is a wise woman and a good woman. There lives no man who dares say different—"

At this point both Adam Ferris and the Earl thought of the man in Vienna who had once dared, and whom the gentle-mannered duellist before them had sent quickly to his own place, with no more time given than to retract his words and receive holy absolution. For in the Austria of that time two gentlemen took a priest as well as a doctor with them to the field of honour. Then Adam Ferris remembered his lonely house below the dark green pines and demanded with a sudden darkening of humour, "And how long is this going to last?"

It was on the tip of Julian's tongue to answer, "Till Patsy is married." For indeed that had been his real thought. But he only said, "For a year or two, brother—it is better so—she runs the hills like a wild thing. Why, officers of his Majesty have boasted of having met and talked to her dressed only in yellow sandals and a blue bathing dress!"

"And, pray, whose fault was that?" her father demanded.

"Not mine," said Julian calmly, "she ran to save the Glenanmays lads from the press-gang; and if the sandals were mine, she ran better with them than without."

"So have I heard all that," said my Lord. "But if only she were a daughter of mine, I should not send her to London to be made as commonplace and artificial as everything else about the Hanoverian court."

"That, my Lord," said Julian, "is the opinion of a partial grandfather. Pardon me for my freedom, but if that boy Louis had been your son, you would have packed him off to dree his weird in the army. And yet he is a wise enough lad, and has come to no great harm—nay, I know him to be both brave and chivalrous—"

"He is a De Raincy," said his grandfather, rather haughtily.

"And as such should have a career," Julian continued without heeding the expression on my Lord's face.

"I have heard of a man who had the highest prize of the most distinguished of careers right in his grasp, yet one fine day dropped everything to go out in an unstarched linen shirt with another man at six o'clock in the morning!"

"When Louis de Raincy has my reasons for doing the like," said Julian, looking directly at the Earl, "you can welcome him home and let him watch the trees grow in the park. He will have given his proofs and learned the meaning of life."

"I beg your pardon!" said Lord Raincy, "I recognize that what you say is true. I am not sure, however, whether I can afford to let Louis go. But perhaps you came back from France to suggest as much to me."

Julian Wemyss laughed for the first time, a clear light-running laugh very pleasant to hear.

"I own I had it in my mind," he said, "all this night-hawking and saving of entrapped damsels is apt to make a boy romantic. Well, no harm for a while, I say. But if you follow my thought and excuse it—'tis not enough to set up house upon. I have no doubt that your grandson thinks himself over head and ears in love with my niece. What Patsy thinks I do not know—probably that young men were created for that purpose and that one is very like another."

"At his age I should certainly have been most deucedly in love with the lady," said the Earl.

"Just so," quoth Julian. "Now I do not know what plans you have for the future of the lad. I do not know Adam's mind. But even if your ideas happened to agree, which is unlikely—it would be a thousand times better for the young people to see something of life first. Let them have three years apart, meeting other people, getting little electric shocks which will surprise them amazingly, and then if you and Adam agree and the young people continue of a stable mind—why, there will be so much the less danger of their House of Life coming about their ears afterwards!"

The morning after the three Wise Men had sat in council together in the castle dining-room, Patsy Ferris and Louis Raincy climbed over opposite high walls and dropped almost simultaneously, and as naturally as ripe fruit falls, into the old orchard of Raincy. In the midst of the walled enclosure stood the marble mausoleum of the family, a heavily domed structure, drowned among high trees, through the narrow windows of which tombs and statues could be seen, and more than one De Raincy in his chain mail with his head on a marble pillow, his hands with the finger-tips joined, and a favourite dog at his feet.

The keys of the enclosure were in the Earl's own coffer, and the trees being too old for valuable fruit, the gardeners never went there, except once a year after the falling of the leaves, "to tidy up a bit, because one never knows what may happen," as old Steven the head gardener said. Even then the Earl came, and, sitting on a chair, surveyed their labours jealously, before locking up after them and going in to put away the key in its place for another year.

Patsy and Louis did not greet each other, though they had not met that morning. In the house one said, "Good morning," "I hope you passed a good night," and silly things like that, but not in the green shade of the old orchard. A weeping willow had been turned over in some winter gale many years ago, but had nevertheless managed to go on growing in its new position. It lay like a feathery plume along the side of the Raincy mausoleum. It was not the first time that Louis and Patsy had utilized it as a convenient seat.

The red squirrel who lived in one of the high pines dropped the husks of the larch tassels on which he was fond of browsing, upon their heads. But he did not chatter at them any more. He recognized a not remote kinship with people who had sense enough to come here to be out of the way, and he said as much to his own mate who was lying lazily curled in a big nest high up the bole of the pine which overtopped the white marble roof of the little chapel and looked clear away to sea and back to the towers of Castle Raincy.

"Patsy," said Louis, "they are going to separate us—I am sure of it. That was why your Uncle Julian came all the way from London."

"Well, let them," said Patsy, swinging her feet and poking at the grass with a branch she had stripped of willow leaves; "I suppose that even if you are at the castle and I at Cairn Ferris we can always come here or meet at the alder grove—why, there are a thousand places."

"Ah, but," said Louis, "I am to go into the army—and you are to go to London, to be taken care of by some great lady whom your Uncle knows!"

Patsy clapped her hands with sudden pleasure.

"Oh, that must be the Princess—Uncle Ju's princess—then I shall know her. It will be such fun!"

"No doubt—for you," said Louis, bitterly, "but since you are so glad to be away from me and with other people, you will the more easily forget all about me."

"Nonsense," said Patsy, "our people won't lock us in dungeons and feed us on bread and water. They don't do it now-a-days. And so will you like to go soldiering. Why, haven't you been moaning to me every day for years because your grandfather would not let you go to be an officer and see the world and fight? You owned that it was fun stopping the carriage and getting me out and riding home—"

"Oh, yes," said Louis, "I do not deny it a bit. I own I said so, but even there it was Stair Garland who had most to do with the real business."

"Well, you must own that he played the game pretty straight."

"Umph," growled Louis, "of course. So would any one!"

"Now, Louis," said Patsy, "don't be a hog. You know you have often said that Stair Garland was as good a gentleman as anybody. Of course, he is fond of me—"

"Has he told you?" cried Louis, starting up and glowering with clenched fists.

"What is that to you, sir?" Patsy retorted, biting her upper lip, while her black eyes shrank to glittering dots under the long lashes through which she considered the speaker. "Attend to your own business, Louis Raincy. It is no business of yours what Stair Garland has said to me, or what he may say!"

"But it is—it is!" cried Louis, shamelessly, stamping his foot.

Patsy swept her skirts aside and motioned with her hand.

"Sit down, little boy!" she said, "you are not built to sing on that key. I can. Your grandfather could, or Uncle Julian—"

"He has killed a man in a duel—another man, I mean—I heard them telling about it to-day in the stables...."

Patsy grew pale.

"Not the Prince!... He will be outlawed. Perhaps they will send him to prison or cut off his head."

"No, no," Louis broke in; "not the Prince, though that is a pity too. I should liked have a whack at him—"

"Well, never mind—Stair Garland had one, and they say that he will hardly ever walk straight again. But whom has Uncle Ju killed? I knew if he heard of it he would kill somebody. He did once before."

"Lord Wargrove. They fought on the beach at Calais. He came straight over to London to arrange about your going to his Princess, whoever she may be, and he arrived here at the castle while your father and my grandfather were sitting together after dinner spinning stories. He was for your going to London directly. He spoke to grandfather about me, too. Mother says he is a bloodthirsty wretch and no right Christian. But grandfather must have thought a lot of him or he would never have listened to a word about my going for a soldier. Now he has written to the Duke to get me a company, and there will be a lot of money to pay, also, which grandad won't like. I am to go to the dÉpÔt immediately to learn the drill and so on. It is a blessing I can ride."

"I don't believe you will be sent to the war at all," said Patsy, "at least not for a while. So don't get cock-a-hoop. You will have a lot to learn, and you can persuade your grandfather, if you really want to see me, to open up his house in London, and then you can come and see me as often as you like."

"What, with a glorified Princess looking after you? I do not see myself, somehow!"

"Oh, you will learn," Patsy retorted carelessly. "Of course we have all got to do that. I don't want very much to leave all this. How should I? It is my country and my life, but I suppose they know best, and at any rate if they keep me too long, I can always run away. You could not do that, of course, when you are a soldier, for that would be desertion, and they would shoot you as they did Admiral Byng."

The bad business of their exodus from the Glens began to wear a brighter aspect for Louis Raincy. London with Patsy partook of the unknown and certainly adventurous. Every young fellow of spirit longs for money in his pocket to see the world, and at the worst Patsy would be well away from the neighbourhood of Stair Garland.

Then the next moment Louis was ashamed of his thought and strove to make amends.

"I wonder what will become of Stair if you go," he said. "I am afraid he will go the pace wilder than ever, and as like as not get into bad trouble."

"Before I go I shall speak to Stair myself," said Patsy with great determination. "He shot a prince of the blood for my sake; perhaps I can make him keep the peace for the same reason. At least for a while."

At this Louis sulked a little, so little indeed that no one but Patsy could have noticed. But she was down upon him like a hawk on a field mouse.

"See here," said Patsy, "this is no stock-in-trade to start out on. You sulk at the first mention of a man's name. I shall see hundreds in London. You will see as many women. I am only a little country girl staying with a great Princess, while you will be the heir to an earldom, besides having all the prestige of the uniform. Oh, I shall like that part of it myself, I don't deny. But I am not going to have you sulking because I speak to this man or dance with that man, or even tell you that I like one man better than another."

She paused, but Louis did not speak. So Patsy, after a long look at him, continued. "I don't know yet whether I love you as you mean, Louis Raincy—or whether I shall ever love any man. Certainly I am not going to cry about you or about anybody. I like you—yes—I like you better than any one I know except Uncle Julian, but not a bit like the lovers in books. So I suppose I am not in love. I would not have you climbing balconies or singing ditties in boats for half this country. I should want to be in bed and asleep. Some day, maybe, I shall love a man, and then I shall love him for take and have and keep. But it has just got to happen, Louis—and if it comes for somebody else, why, I rather think it will be so much the better for you. Come now, it is time to go home. Shake hands, and be friends—no, sir, nothing else. Wait a good quarter of an hour after I am gone. We don't know what is before either of us, but if you are going to whimper about what we can't help—I am not!"

She jumped on the first branches of the larch, still holding Louis's hand. As she let go she took a handful of his clustering curls and gave a cheerful tug to his head that brought the tears sharply to his eyes.

"Go off and try to fall in love with a dozen of the prettiest girls you can find in London, and if you don't succeed in three years, come back here and we will talk the matter all over again from the beginning."

She was now on the top of the wall. She turned her legs over deftly to the other side with a swirl of her skirts.

"Good-bye, Louis!" she said, waving a brown hand at him as she slid off into the wood. "Some day you will be more of a man than I, and then you will not let a girl put you down."

"Do you know what I think?" cried the boy, exasperated. "I think that you are a hard-hearted little wretch!"

But only the sound of Patsy's laughter rippled up mockingly from far down the glade.