As he came up to The Woodman Inn he remembered, what he had forgotten in the morning, that he had left his cigar-case on the dining-room mantel-shelf.  He pulled up, and giving Adonis to the hostler, who rushed forward promptly, he went into the inn.  There was no one in the hall, and knowing that he should be late for luncheon, he opened the dining-room door and walked in, and straight up to the fireplace.

The cigar-case was where he had left it, and he turned to go out.  Then he saw that he was not the only occupant of the room, for a lady was sitting in the broad bay-window.  He snatched off his cap and murmured an apology.

“I beg your pardon!  I did not know anyone was in the room,” he said.

The lady was young and handsome, with a beauty which owed a great deal to colour.  Her hair was a rich auburn, her complexion of the delicate purity which sometimes goes with that coloured hair—­“milk and roses,” it used to be called.  Her eyes were of china blue, and her lips rather full, but of the richest carmine.  She was exquisitely dressed, her travelling costume evidently of Redfern’s build, and one hand, from which she had removed the glove, was loaded with costly rings; diamonds and emeralds as large as nuts, and of the first water.

But it was not her undeniable beauty, or her dress and costly jewellery, which impressed Stafford so much as the proud, scornfully listless air with which she regarded him as she leant back indolently—­and a little insolently—­tapping the edge of the table with her glove.

“Pray don’t apologise,” she said, languidly.  “This is a public room, I suppose!”

“Yes, I think so,” said Stafford, in his pleasant, frank way; “but one doesn’t rush into a public room with one’s hat on if he has reason to suppose that a lady is present.  I thought there was no one here—­the curtain concealed you:  I am sorry.”

She shrugged her shoulders and gave him the faintest and most condescending of bows; then, as he reached the door, she said: 

“Do you think it will be moonlight to-night?”

Stafford naturally looked rather surprised at this point-blank meteorological question.

“I shouldn’t be surprised if it were,” he said.  “You see, this is a very changeable climate, and as it is raining now it will probably clear up before the evening.”

“Thanks!” she said.  “I am much obliged—­”

“Oh, my opinion isn’t worth much,” he put in parenthetically, but she went on as if he had not spoken.

—­“I should be still further obliged if you would be so kind as to tell my father—­he is outside with the carriage somewhere—­that I am tired and that I would rather not go on until the cool of the evening.”

“Certainly,” said Stafford.

He waited a moment to see if she had any other requests, or rather orders, and then went out and found the gentleman with the strongly marked countenance, in the stable-yard beside the carriage to which the hostler and the help were putting fresh horses.