* * * * *

The following morning fulfilled the promise of the tranquil evening and starry night, which, amid the deep quiet of the country, had done much to refresh a man, in whom, indeed, a stimulating consciousness of success seemed already to have repaired the ravages of the fight.

Ferrier was always an early riser, and by nine o’clock he and Sir James were pottering and smoking in the garden.  A long case in which Chide had been engaged had come to an end the preceding day.  The great lawyer sent word to his chambers that he was not coming up to town; Ferrier ascertained that he was only half an hour from a telegraph office, made a special arrangement with the local post as to a mid-day delivery of letters, and then gave himself up for the morning to rest, gossip, and a walk.

By a tiresome contretemps the newspapers did not arrive at breakfast-time.  Sir James was but a new-comer in the district, and the parcel of papers due to him had gone astray through the stupidity of a newsboy.  A servant was sent into Dunscombe, five miles off; and meanwhile Ferrier bore the blunder with equanimity.  His letters of the morning, fresh from the heart of things, made newspapers a mere superfluity.  They could tell him nothing that he did not know already.  And as for opinions, those might wait.

He proposed, indeed, before the return of the servant from Dunscombe, to walk over to Beechcote.  The road lay through woods, two miles of shade.  He pined for exercise; Diana and her young sympathy acted as a magnet both on him and on Sir James; and it was to be presumed she took a daily paper, being, as Ferrier recalled, “a terrible little Tory.”

In less than an hour they were at Beechcote.  They found Diana and Mrs. Colwood on the lawn of the old house, reading and working in the shade of a yew hedge planted by that Topham Beauclerk who was a friend of Johnson.  The scent of roses and limes; the hum of bees; the beauty of slow-sailing clouds, and of the shadows they flung on the mellowed color of the house; combined with the figure of Diana in white, her eager eyes, her smile, and her unquenchable interest in all that concerned the two friends, of whose devotion to her she was so gratefully and simply proud—­these things put the last touch to Ferrier’s enjoyment.  He flung himself on the grass, talking to both the ladies of the incidents and absurdities of Cabinet-making, with a freedom and fun, an abandonment of anxiety and care that made him young again.  Nobody mentioned a newspaper.

Presently Chide, who had now taken the part of general adviser to Diana, which had once been filled by Marsham, strolled off with her to look at a greenhouse in need of repairs.  Mrs. Colwood was called in by some household matter.  Ferrier was left alone.