Hidden from his sight by an intervening yew tree, she watched him coming down the church path, conscious of a somewhat pleasurable sense of anticipation, and when he had passed under the lichgate and, turning to the left, came face to face with her, she bowed and smiled, holding out her hand.

To her utter amazement he looked at her without the faintest sign of recognition on his face, pausing only for the fraction of a second as a man may when some stranger claims his acquaintance by mistake; then with a murmured “Pardon!” he raised his hat slightly and passed on.

Diana’s hand dropped slowly to her side.  She felt stunned.  The thing seemed incredible.  Less than a week ago she and this man had travelled companionably together in the train, dined at the same table, and together shared the same dreadful menace which had brought death very close to both of them, and now he passed her by with the cool stare of an utter stranger!  If he had knocked her down she would hardly have been more astonished.

Moreover, it was not as though her companionship had been forced upon him in the train; he had deliberately sought it.  Two people can travel side by side without advancing a single hairsbreadth towards acquaintance if they choose.  But he had not so chosen—­most assuredly he had not.  He had quietly, with a charmingly persuasive insistence, broken through the conventions of custom, and had subsequently proved himself as considerate and as thoughtful for her comfort as any actual friend could have been.  More than that, in those moments of tense excitement, immediately after the collision had occurred, she could have sworn that real feeling, genuine concern for her safety, had vibrated in his voice.

And now, just as deliberately, just as composedly as he had begun the acquaintance, so he had closed it.

Diana’s cheeks burned with shame.  She felt humiliated.  Evidently he had regarded her merely as some one with whom it might he agreeable to idle away the tedium of a journey—­but that was all.  It was obviously his intention that that should be the beginning and the end of it.

In a dream she crossed the road and, opening the gate that admitted to the “church path,” made her way home alone.  She felt she must have a few minutes to herself before she faced the Rector and Joan at the Rectory mid-day dinner.  Fortunately, they were both in ignorance of this amazing, stupefying fact that her fellow-traveller—­the “gallant rescuer” about whom Pobs had so joyously chaffed her—­had signified in the most unmistakable fashion that he wanted nothing more to do with her, and by the time the dinner-bell sounded, Diana had herself well in hand—­so well that she was even able to ask in tones of quite casual interest if any one knew who were the strangers in church that morning?

“Yes, Mowbray told me,” replied the Rector.  “They are the new people who have taken Red Gables—­that pretty little place on the Woodway Road.  The girl is Adrienne de Gervais, the actress, and the elderly lady is a Mrs. Adams, her chaperon.”