lantern, and the light and shade of it seemed to have been specially devised to bring into relief Rachel’s round and tempting beauty, the bright brown of her hair where it curled on the temples, and the lovely oval of the cheeks.  Ellesborough watched her, now passing into deep shadow, and now brilliantly lit up, as the light of the lantern caught her; overhead, the criss-cross of the arching beams as of some primitive cathedral, centuries old; and on either side the dim forms of the munching cattle, and the pretty movements of the girls busy with their work.

“Take care,” laughed Rachel as she passed him.  “There are horrid holes in this floor.  I haven’t had time to mend them.”

As she spoke, she slipped and almost fell.  Ellesborough threw out a quick hand and caught her by the arm.  She smiled into his face.

“Neatly done!” she said composedly, submitting to be led by him over a very broken bit of pavement near the door.  His hand held her firmly.  Nor did she make any effort to release herself till they were outside.  Here were the vicar and his sister waiting to say good-night—­the vicar much chagrined that he had seen so little of his chief hostess, and inclined to feel that his self-sacrificing attention to Miss Leighton at supper had been but poorly rewarded.  Rachel, however, saw that he was out of humour, and at once set herself to appease him.  And in the few minutes which elapsed before she parted with him at the gate she had quite succeeded.

Then she turned to Ellesborough.

“Shall we go up the hill a little?”

They slipped through a side gate of the farmyard, crossed a field, and found themselves on an old grass road leading gently upward along the side of the down into the shadow of the woods.  The still, warm night held them enwrapped.  Rachel had thrown a white scarf over her head and throat, which gave a mysterious charm to the face within it.  As she strolled beside her hew friend she played him with all the arts of a woman resolved to please.  And he allowed himself to be handled at her will.  He told her about his people, and his friends, about the ideas and ambitions, also, with which he had come to Europe, which were now in abeyance, but were to spring to active life after the war.  Forestry on a great scale; a part to be played in the preservation and development of the vast forest areas of America which had been so wilfully wasted; business and patriotism combined; fortune possible; but in any case the public interest served.  He talked shrewdly, but also with ardour and imagination; she was stirred, excited even; and all the time she liked the foreignness of his voice, the outline of his profile against the sky, and all the other elements of his physical presence.

But in the midst of his castle-building he broke off.

“However, I’m a silly fool to talk like this.  I’m going out to the front directly.  Perhaps my bullet’s waiting for me.”