“Yes, I know,” she said agreeably.  He looked dazed and delighted.  “Of course, I shall come with stealth and darkly.  Not even my brother shall know of my plans.”

“Certainly not,” he said with alacrity. (They were nearing the line.) “Depend on me.”

“Depend on you?  Your only duty is to scare me off the place.”

“That’s what I mean.  I’ll keep sharp watch for you up at the haunted house.”

“It’s more than a mile from the line,” she advised him.

“Yes, I know,” said he, with his friendliest smile.  “Oh, by the way, would you mind doing your brother a favor, Miss Drake?  Give him this watch.  He—­er—­he must have dropped it while pursuing me.”

“You ran?” she accepted the watch with surprise and unbelief.

“Here is the line, Miss Drake,” he evaded.  “Consider yourself ignominiously ejected.  Have I been unnecessarily rough and expeditious?”

“You have had a long and tiresome walk,” she said, settling herself for a merry clip.  “Please don’t step on our side.”  He released the bridle rein and doffed his hat.

“I shall bring my horse to-morrow,” he remarked significantly.

“I may bring the duke,” she said sweetly.

“In that case I shall have to bring an extra man to lead his horse.  It won’t matter.”

“So this rock is the dividing line?”

“Yes; you are on the safe side now—­and so am I, for that matter.  The line is here,” and he drew a broad line in the dust from one side of the road to the other.  “My orders are that you are not to ride across that line, at your peril.”

“And you are not to cross it either, at your peril.”

“Do you dare me?” with an eager step forward.

“Good-bye.”

“Good-bye!  I say, are you sure you can find the Kenwood cottage?” he called after her.  The answer came back through the clatter of hoofs, accompanied by a smile that seduced his self-possession.

“I shall find it in time.”

For a long time he stood watching her as she raced down the road.

“At my peril,” he mused, shaking his head with a queer smile.  “By George, that’s fair warning enough.  She’s beautiful.”

At dinner that night the Honorable Penelope restored the watch to her brother, much to his embarrassment, for he had told the duke it was being repaired in town.

“It wasn’t this watch that I meant, old chap,” he announced, irrelevantly, to the duke, quite red in the face.  “Where did you find it, Pen?” She caught the plea in his eye and responded loyally.

“You dropped it, I daresay, in pursuing Mr. Shaw.”

The positive radiance which followed dismay in his watery eyes convinced her beyond all doubt that her brother’s encounter with the tall Mr. Shaw was not quite creditable to Bazelhurst arms.  She listened with pensive indifference to the oft-repeated story of how he had routed the “insufferable cad,” encouraged by the support of champagne and the solicited approval of two eye-witnesses.  She could not repress the mixed feelings of scorn, shame, and pity, as she surveyed the array of men who so mercilessly flayed the healthy, fair-faced young man with the gentle strength.