Slowly spring merged into summer, and more and more did it seem to Nan that the past was nothing but a dream.  She returned to her customary pursuits with all her old zest, rising early in the mornings to follow the otter-hounds, tramping for miles, and returning ravenous to breakfast; or, again, spending hours in the saddle, and only returning at her own sweet will.  Colonel Everard’s household was one of absolute freedom.  No one ever questioned the doings of anyone else.  From the earliest they had one and all been accustomed to go their own way.  And Nan was the freest and most independent of them all.

It was on a splendid morning in July that as she splashed along the marshy edge of a stream in hot pursuit of one of the biggest otters she had ever seen, a well-known voice accosted her by name.

“Hullo, Nan!  I wondered if you would turn up when they told me you were still at home.”

Nan whisked round, up to her ankles in mud.

“Hullo, Jerry, it’s you, is it?” was her unceremonious reply.  “Pleased to see you, my boy.  But don’t talk to me now.  I can’t think of anything but business.”

She was off with the words, not waiting to shake hands.  But Jerry Lister was not in the least discouraged by this treatment.  He was accustomed to Nan and all her ways.

He pounded after her along the bank and joined her as a matter of course.  A straight, good-looking youth was Jerry, as wild and headstrong as Nan herself.  He was the grand-nephew of old Squire Grimshaw, Colonel Everard’s special crony, and he and Nan had been chums from their childhood.  He was only a year older than she, and in many respects he was her junior.  “I say, you are all right again?” was his first question, when the otter allowed them a little breathing-space.  “I was awfully sorry to hear about your accident, you know, but awfully glad, too, in a way.  By Jove, I don’t think I could have spent the Long here, with you in South Africa!  What ever possessed you to go and marry a Boer, Nan?”

“Don’t be an idiot!” said Nan sharply.  “He isn’t anything of the sort.”

Jerry accepted the correction with a boyish grimace.

“I’m coming to call on you to-morrow, Mrs. Cradock,” he announced.

Nan coloured angrily.

“You needn’t trouble yourself,” she returned.  “I don’t receive callers.”

But Jerry was not to be shaken off.  He linked an affectionate arm in hers.

“All right, Nan old girl, don’t be waxy,” he pleaded.  “Come on the lake with me this afternoon instead.  I’ll bring some prog if you will, and we’ll have one of our old red-letter days.  Is it a promise?”

She hesitated, still half inclined to be ungracious.

“Well,” she said at length, moved in spite of herself by his persuasive attitude, “I will come to please you, on one condition.”

“Good!” ejaculated Jerry.  “It’s done, whatever it is.”

“Don’t be absurd!” she protested, trying to be stern and failing somewhat ignominiously.  “I will come only if you will promise not to talk about anything that you see I don’t like.”