Capella was standing panting near a stile.  A girl, dressed in muslin, and wearing a large straw hat, was approaching.

“Great Heavens!  It is Helen!” exclaimed Hume.

Brett grasped his shoulder.

“Restrain yourself,” he whispered earnestly.  “Luckily, Capella has not heard you.  I regret the necessity which makes us eavesdroppers, but it is a fortunate accident, all the same.  Not a word!  Remember what is at stake.”

They could not see the Italian’s face.  His back was heaving from the violence of his exertion.  Miss Layton was walking rapidly towards the stile.  Obviously she had perceived the waiting man, and she was not pleased.

Her pretty face, flushed and sunburnt, wore the strained aspect of a woman annoyed, but trying to be civil.

It was she who took the initiative.

“Good day, Mr. Capella,” she said pleasantly.  “Why on earth did you run so fast?”

“Because I wished to be here before you, Miss Layton,” replied the man, his voice tremulous with excitement.

“Then I wish I had known, because I could have beaten you easily if you meant to race me.”

“That was not my object.”

“Well, now you have attained it, whatever it may have been, please allow me to get over the stile.  I will be late for luncheon.  My father wished me to ascertain how Farmer Burton is progressing after his spill.  He was thrown from his dog-cart whilst coming from the Bury St. Edmund’s fair.”

It was easy for the listeners behind the hedge to gather that the girl’s affable manner was affected.  She was really somewhat alarmed.  Her eyes wandered to the high road to see if anyone was approaching, and she kept at some distance from the Italian.

“Do not play with me, Nellie,” said Capella, in agonised accents.  “I am consumed with love of you.  Can you not, at least, give me your pity?”

“Mr. Capella,” she cried, and none but one blind to all save his own passionate desires could fail to note her lofty disdain, “how can you be so base as to use such language to me?”

“Base!  To love you!”

“Again I say it—­base and unmanly.  What have I done that you should venture to so insult your charming wife, not to speak of the insult to myself?  When you so far forgot yourself a fortnight ago as to hint at your outrageous ideas regarding me, I forced myself to remember that you were not an Englishman, that perhaps in your country there may be a social code which permits a man to dishonour his home and to annoy a defenceless woman.  I cannot forgive you a second time.  Let me pass!  Let me pass, I tell you, or I will strike you!”

Brett, in his admiration for the spirited girl who, notwithstanding her protestations, seemed to be anything but “defenceless,” momentarily forgot his companion.

A convulsive tightening of Hume’s muscles, preparatory to a leap through the hedge, warned him in time.