Stephen Hurd walked into the room which he and his father shared as a sanctum, half office, half study. Mr. Hurd, senior, was attired in his conventional Sabbath garb, the same black coat of hard, dull material, and dark grey trousers, in which he had attended church for more years than many of the villagers could remember. Stephen, on the other hand, was attired in evening clothes of the latest cut. His white waistcoat had come from a London tailor, and his white tie had cost him considerable pains. His father looked him over with expressionless face.

“You are going to the House again, Stephen?” he asked calmly.

“I am asked to dine there, father,” he answered. “Sorry to leave you alone.”

“I have no objection to being alone,” Mr. Hurd answered. “I think that you know that. You lunched there, didn’t you?”

Stephen nodded.

“Miss Thorpe-Hatton asked me as we came out of church,” he answered.

“You play cards?”

The directness of the question allowed of no evasion. Stephen flushed as he answered.

“They play bridge. I may be asked to join. It—is a sort of whist, you know.”

“So I understand,” the older man remarked. “I have no remark to make concerning that. Manners change, I suppose, with the generations. You are young and I am old. I have never sought to impose my prejudices upon you. You have seen more of the world than I ever did. Perhaps you have found wisdom there.”

Stephen was not at his ease.

“I don’t know about that, sir,” he answered. “Of course, Sunday isn’t kept so strictly as it used to be. I like a quiet day myself, but it’s pretty dull here usually, and I didn’t think it would be wise to refuse an invitation from Miss Thorpe-Hatton.”

“Perhaps not,” Mr. Hurd answered. “On the other hand, I might remind you that during the forty years during which I have been agent to this estate I have never accepted—beyond a glass of wine—the hospitality offered to me by Miss Thorpe-Hatton’s father and grandfather, and by the young lady herself. It is not according to my idea of the fitness of things. I am a servant of the owner of these estates. I prefer to discharge my duties honestly and capably—as a servant.”

Stephen frowned at his reflection in the glass. He did not feel in the least like a servant.

“That’s rather an old-fashioned view, dad,” he declared.

“It may be,” his father answered. “In any case, I do not seek to impose it upon you. You are free to come and go according to your judgment. But you are young, and I cannot see you expose yourself to trouble without some warning. Miss Thorpe-Hatton is not a lady whom it is wise for you to see too much of.”

The directness of this speech took the young man aback.

“I—she seems very pleasant and gracious,” he faltered.

“Not even to you,” his father continued gravely, “can I betray the knowledge of such things as have come under my notice as the servant of these estates and this young lady. Her father was a fine, self-respecting gentleman, as all the Thorpe-Hattons have been; her mother came from a noble, but degenerate, French family. I, who live here a life without change, who mark time for the years and watch the striplings become old men, see many things, and see them truthfully. The evil seed of her mother’s family is in this young woman’s blood. She lives without a chaperon, without companionship, as she pleases—and to please herself only.”

Stephen frowned irritably. His father’s cold, measured words were like drops of ice.

“But, father,” he protested, “she is a leader of Society, she goes to Court and you see her name at the very best places. If there was anything wrong about her, she wouldn’t be received like that.”

“I know nothing about Society or its requirements,” his father answered. “She has brains and wealth, and she is a woman. Therefore, I suppose the world is on her side. I have said all that I wish to say. You can perhaps conjecture the reason of my speaking at all.”

“She wouldn’t take the trouble to make a fool of me,” Stephen answered bitterly. “I just happen to make up a number, that’s all.”

“I am glad that you understand the young lady so well,” his father answered. “Before you go, will you be good enough to pass me the Bible and my spectacles, and let Mary know that Mr. Stuart will be in to supper with me.”

Stephen obeyed in silence. He remembered the time, not so long ago, when he would have been required to seat himself on the opposite side of the fireplace, with a smaller Bible in his hand, and read word for word with his father. His mind went back to those days as he walked slowly up the great grass-grown avenue to the house, picking his steps carefully, lest he should mar the brilliancy of his well-polished patent-leather boots. He compared that old time curiously with the evening which was now before him; the round table drawn into the midst of the splendid dining-room, an oasis of exquisitely shaded light and colour; Lady Peggy with her daring toilette and beautiful white shoulders; Deyes with his world-worn face and flippant tongue; the mistress of Thorpe herself, more subdued, perhaps, in dress and speech, and yet with the ever-present mystery of eyes and lips wherein was always the fascination of the unknown. More than ever that night Stephen Hurd felt himself to be her helpless slave. All his former amours seemed suddenly empty and vulgar things. She came late into the drawing-room, her greeting was as carelessly kind as usual, there was no perceptible difference in her manner of speech. Yet his observation of her was so intense that he found readily the signs of some subtle, indefinable change, a change which began with her toilette, and ended—ah! as yet there was no ending. Her gown of soft white silk was daring as a French modiste could make it, but its simplicity was almost nun-like. She wore a string of pearls, no earrings, no rings, and her hair was arranged low down, almost like a schoolgirl’s. She had more colour than usual, a temporary restlessness seemed to have taken the place of her customary easy languor. What did it mean? he asked himself breathlessly. Was it Deyes? Impossible, for Deyes himself was a watcher, a thin smile parting sometimes the close set lips of his white, mask-like face. After all, how hopelessly at sea he was! He knew nothing of her life, of which these few days at Thorpe were merely an interlude. She might have lovers by the score of whom he knew nothing. He was vain, but he was not wholly a fool.

She talked more than usual at dinner-time, but afterwards she spoke of a headache, and sat on the window-seat of the library, a cigarette between her lips, her eyes half closed. When the bridge table was laid out, she turned her head languidly.

“I will come in in the next rubber,” she said. “You four can start.”

They obeyed her, of course, but Lady Peggy shrugged her shoulders slightly. She had no fancy for Stephen’s bridge, and they cut together. Wilhelmina waited until the soft fall of the cards had ceased, and the hands were being examined. Then, with a graceful movement, she slipped out of the window and away into the shadows. No signs of her headache were left. She passed swiftly along a narrow path, bordered by gigantic shrubs, until she reached a small iron gate. Here for the first time she paused.

For several moments she listened. There was no sound from the great house, whose outline she could barely see but whose long row of lights stretched out behind her. She turned her head and looked along the grass-grown lane beyond the gate. There was no one in sight—no sound. She lifted the latch and passed through.

For a summer night it was unusually dark. All day the heat had been almost tropical, and now the sky was clouded over, and a south wind, dry and unrefreshing, was moving against the tall elms. Every few seconds the heavens were ablaze with summer lightning; once the breathless silence was broken by a low rumble of distant thunder.

She reached the end of the lane. Before her, another gate led out on to a grass-covered hill, strewn with fragments of rocks. She paused for a moment and looked backwards. She was suddenly conscious that her heart was beating fast; the piquant sense of adventure with which she had started had given place to a rarer and more exciting turmoil of the senses. Her breath was coming short, as though she had been running.

The silence seemed more complete than ever. She lifted her foot and felt the white satin slipper. It was perfectly dry, there was no dew, and as yet no rain had fallen. She lifted the latch of the gate and passed through.

The footpath skirted the side of a plantation, and she followed it closely, keeping under the shelter of the hedge. Every now and then a rabbit started up almost from under her feet, and rushed into the hedge. The spinney itself seemed alive with birds and animals, startled by her light footsteps in the shelter which they had sought, disturbed too by their instinct of the coming storm. Her footsteps grew swifter. She was committed now to her enterprise, vague though it had seemed to her. She passed through a second gate into a ragged wood, and along a winding path into a country road. She turned slowly up the hill. Her breath was coming faster than ever now. What folly!—transcendental!—exquisite! Her footsteps grew slower. She kept to the side of the hedge, raising her skirts a little, for the grass was long. A few yards farther was the gate. The soft swish of her silken draperies as she stole along, became a clearly recognizable sound against the background of intense silence. Macheson had been leaning against a tree just inside. He opened the gate. She stepped almost into his arms. Her white face was suddenly illuminated by the soft blaze of summer lightning which poured from the sky. He had no time to move, to realize. He felt her hands upon his cheek, his face drawn downwards, her lips, soft and burning, pressed against his for one long, exquisite second. And then—the darkness once more and his arms were empty.