Grace hesitated, glancing at Kit.  It was her fault that they had hidden and she would have waited had she thought he wanted her.  Kit’s face, however, was hard and inscrutable, and with something of an effort she went away.  It was a relief to Kit that she had gone; he had meant to keep her out of the quarrel and now he was ready to talk to Osborn.

“The matter doesn’t end here,” the latter remarked.  “There’s something to be said that your father ought to know.  I am going to Ashness and expect you to come with me.”

“You must wait.  I have some sheep at the beckfoot and it will take me half an hour to drive them home,” Kit said coolly.

Osborn looked at him with savage surprise.  It was unthinkable that he should be forced to wait while the fellow went for his sheep, but he saw that Kit was not to be moved and tried to control his anger.

“Very well.  I will meet you at Ashness in half an hour.”

Kit braced himself as he went up the road.  In a sense, he was not afraid of Osborn, but he had now to meet a crisis that he ought to have seen must come.  In fact, he had seen it, and had, rather weakly, tried to cheat himself and put things off.  He loved Grace, and Osborn would never approve.  Kit knew Osborn’s pride and admitted that his anger was, perhaps, not altogether unwarranted.  For that matter, he doubted if Grace knew how far his rash hopes had led him.  Then he thrilled as he remembered that when she pushed him back to the hedge, and afterwards when they left their hiding place, something had hinted that she did know and acknowledge him her lover.

In the meantime, it was a relief to drive the sheep down the dale; he could not think while he was occupied and thought was disturbing.  He put the sheep into a field and overtook Osborn as he went up the farm lonning in the dark.  A lamp burned in the kitchen, and when they went in Peter got up and put his pipe on the table.  He looked at them with some surprise, but waited without embarrassment.  Indeed, Kit thought his father was curiously dignified.

“Mr. Osborn has something to say he wants you to hear,” Kit remarked.  “Although the thing’s really my business, I agreed.”

Osborn refused the chair Peter indicated and stood in a stiff pose.  His face was red and he looked rather ridiculously savage.

“I found your son and my daughter hiding from me in the hedge at Redmire wood,” he said.  “I imagine I’m entitled to ask for an explanation.”

“Hiding?” said Peter, who turned to Kit.  “That was wrong.”

“It was wrong,” Kit admitted.  “I told Mr. Osborn so.  In fact, I must have lost my head when I made a mistake like this.  Since I had the honor of Miss Osborn’s acquaintance—­”

“Who presented you to my daughter?” Osborn interrupted.

“Nobody,” Kit admitted, with some embarrassment.  “The day the otter hounds were hunting the alder pool Miss Osborn wanted to cross the stepping stones.  Some of them were covered and I—­”