Lord Arleigh felt very disconsolate that June morning.  The world was so beautiful, so bright, so fair, it seemed hard that he should have no pleasure in it.  If fate had but been kinder to him!  To increase his dullness, Lord Mountdean, who had been staying with him some days, had suddenly disappeared.  He had gone out early in the morning, saying that he would have a long ramble in the woods, and would probably not return until noon for luncheon.  Noon had come and passed, luncheon was served, yet there was no sign of the earl, Lord Arleigh was not uneasy, but he longed for his friend’s society.

At last he decided upon going in search of him.  He had perhaps lost his way in the woods, or he had mistaken some road.  It was high time that they looked after him—­he had been so many hours absent without apparent cause.  Lord Arleigh whistled for his two favorite dogs, Nero and Venus, and started out in search of his friend.

He went through the woods and down the high-road, but there was no sign of the earl.  “He must have walked home by another route,” thought Lord Arleigh; and he went back to Beechgrove.  He did not find the earl there, but the groom, who had evidently been riding fast, was waiting for him in the hall.

“My lord,” he said, “I was directed to give you this at once, and beg of you not to lose a moment’s time.”

Wondering what had happened, Lord Arleigh opened the note and read: 

     “My Dear Lord Arleigh:  Something too wonderful for me to set down
     in words has happened.  I am at the Dower House, Winiston.  Come at
     once, and lose no time.

     Mountdean.”

“At the Dower House?” mused Lord Arleigh.  “What can it mean?”

“Did the Earl of Mountdean send this himself?” he said to the man.

“Yes, my lord.  He bade me ride as though for life, and ask your lordship to hurry in the same way.”

“Is he hurt?  Has there been any accident?”

“I have heard of no accident, my lord; but, when the earl came to give me the note, he looked wild and unsettled.”

Lord Arleigh gave orders that his fleetest horse should be saddled at once, and then he rode away.

He was so absorbed in thought that more than once he had a narrow escape, almost striking his head against the overhanging boughs of the trees.  What could it possibly mean?  Lord Mountdean at the Dower House!  He fancied some accident must have happened to him.

He had never been to the Dower House since the night when he took his young wife thither, and as he rode along his thoughts recurred to that terrible evening.  Would he see her now, he wondered, and would she, in her shy, pretty way, advance to meet him?  It could not surely be that she was ill, and that the earl, having heard of it, had sent for him.  No, that could not be—­for the note said that something wonderful had occurred.

Speculation was evidently useless—­the only thing to be done was to hasten as quickly as he could, and learn for himself what it all meant.  He rode perhaps faster than he had ever ridden in his life before.  When he reached the Dower House the horse was bathed in foam.  He thought to himself, as he rang the bell at the outer gate, how strange it was that he—­the husband—­should be standing there ringing for admittance.