‘I know,’ he interrupted, ’on cottages and the hospital.  Money oozes away at every pore!  I shall be a bare beggar after the war.  Have you the contract there?  Or did Dell take it?’

Elizabeth drew a roll of blue paper out of her pocket.  Her indignation made her speechless.  All the endless negotiations, Captain Dell’s work, her work—­to go for nothing!  What was the use of trying to serve—­to work with such a man?

The Squire took the roll from her and searched his pockets for a fountain-pen.

’I will make some notes on it now for Dell’s guidance.  I might forget it to-night.’

Elizabeth said nothing.  He turned away, spread out the papers on the smooth trunk of the fallen tree, and began to write.

Elizabeth sat very erect, her mouth proudly set, her eyes wandering into the distance of the wood.  What was she to do?  The affront to herself was gross—­for the Squire had definitely promised her the night before that the bargain should go through.  And she felt hotly for the hard-working agent.  Should she put up with it?  Her meditations of the night recurred to her—­and she seemed to herself a very foolish woman!

‘There you are!’ said the Squire, as he handed the roll back to her.

She looked at it unwillingly.  Then her face changed.  She stooped over the contract.  Below the signature of the firm of timber-merchants stood large and full that of ‘Edmund Mannering.’

The Squire smiled.

‘Now are you satisfied?’

She returned the contract to its envelope, and both to her pocket.  Then she looked at him uncertainly.

‘May I ask what that meant?’

Her voice was still strained, and her eyes by no means meek.

‘I am sorry,’ said the Squire hurriedly.  ’I don’t know—­it was a whim.  I wanted to have the pleasure—­’

‘Of seeing how a person looks under a sudden disappointment?’ said Elizabeth, with rather pinched lips.

’Not at all.  It was a childish thing—­I wanted to see you smile when I gave you the thing back.  There—­that’s the truth.  It was you disappointed me!’

Elizabeth’s wrath vanished.  She hid her face in her hands and laughed.  But there was agitation behind the laughter.  These were not the normal ways of a reasonable man.

When she looked up, the Squire had moved to a log close beside her.  The March sun was pouring down upon them, and there was a robin singing, quite undisturbed by their presence, in a holly-bush near.  The Squire’s wilful countenance had never seemed to Elizabeth more full of an uncanny and even threatening energy.  Involuntarily she withdrew her seat.

‘I wish to be allowed to make a very serious proposition to you,’ he said eagerly, ‘one that I have been considering for weeks.’

Elizabeth—­rather weakly—­put up a protesting hand.

’I am afraid I must point out to you, Mr. Mannering, that Mrs. Gaddesden will be waiting lunch.’