She rode down the road in the sunlight, the big chestnut moving under her as if he were on springs and she were a feather, and, half unconsciously, she began to hum an air—­not one of those modern ones one hears in many drawing-rooms, but an old-fashioned melody which she had found in an ancient music-book in the antique cabinet beside the grand piano.  She left the road where it touched the wild moorland of the valley, and Rupert broke into a canter, Donald and Bess, settling into the stride with which they managed to keep up with the big horse.

She had resolved that she would not ride straight to the stream, and she kept up the hill-side, but her eyes wandered to the road expectantly now and again; but there was no sign of a horseman, and after half an hour had passed a sense of disappointment rose within her.  It was quite possible that he had forgotten the engagement; perhaps on reflection he had seen that she was quite right in her objections to his strange proposal, and he would not come.  A faint flush rose to her face, and she turned Rupert and rode up and over the hill where she could not see the road.  But she had no sooner got on top than she remembered that no time had been mentioned, or, if it had, that she had forgotten it.  She turned and rode up the hill again, and looking down, saw Stafford riding along the valley in desperate haste, and yet looking about him uncertainly.  Her heart beat with a quickened pulse, sending the delicate colour into her face, and she pulled up, and, leaning forward with her chin in her hand, watched him dreamily.

He rode a heavier horse than Adonis; and he had made a change in his dress; in place of the riding-suit, which had smacked of London and Hyde Park, he wore a rough but light coat, thick cord breeches, and brown leather gaiters.  She smiled as she knew that he had tried to make himself look as much like a farmer as possible; but no farmer in the dales had that peculiar air of birth and breeding which distinguished Stafford Orme; the air which his father had been so quick to detect and to be proud of.

She noticed how well he sat the great horse, with what ease and “hands” he rode over the rough and treacherous ground.  Suddenly he turned his head and saw her, and with a wave of his hand came galloping up to her, with a smile of relief and gladness on his handsome face, as he spoke to the dogs, who clamoured round him.

“I was so afraid I had missed you,” he said.  “I am late, am I not?  Some people kept me after breakfast.”

“You are not late; I don’t think any time was mentioned,” she responded, quickly, though her heart was beating with a strange and novel sensation of pleasure in his presence.  “I scarcely expected you.”

He looked at her reproachfully.

“Not expect me!  But why?”

“I thought you might change your mind,” she said.

He checked a quick response, and said instead: 

“And now, where do we go first?  You see I have got a bit heavier horse.  He’s a present, also, from my father.  What do you think of him?”