“Who’s Mr. Elster?” cried the angry dowager.  “What right has he to be at Hartledon, poking his nose into everything that does not concern him?—­what right has he, I ask?”

“The right of being Lord Hartledon’s brother,” carelessly replied Anne.

“It is a right he had best not presume upon,” rejoined Lady Kirton.  “Brothers are brothers as children; but the tie widens as they grow up and launch out into their different spheres.  There’s not a man of all Hartledon’s guests but has more right to be here than Val Elster.”

“Yet they are brothers still.”

“Brothers!  I’ll take care that Val Elster presumes no more upon the tie when Maude reigns at—­”

For once the countess-dowager caught up her words.  She had said more than she had meant to say.  Anne Ashton’s calm sweet eyes were bent upon her, waiting for more.

“It is true,” she said, giving a shake to the purple tails, and taking a sudden resolution, “Maude is to be his wife; but I ought not to have let it slip out.  It was unintentional; and I throw myself on your honour, Miss Ashton.”

“But it is not true?” asked Anne, somewhat perplexed.

“It is true.  Hartledon has his own reasons for keeping it quiet at present; but—­you’ll see when the time comes.  Should I take upon myself so much rule here, but that it is to be Maude’s future home?”

“I don’t believe it,” cried Anne, as the old story-teller sailed off.  “That she loves him, and that her mother is anxious to secure him, is evident; but he is truthful and open, and would never conceal it.  No, no, Lady Maude! you are cherishing a false hope.  You are very beautiful, but you are not worthy of him; and I should not like you for my sister-in-law at all.  That dreadful old countess-dowager!  How she dislikes Val, and how rude she is!  I’ll try not to come in her way again after to-day, as long as they are at Hartledon.”

“What are you thinking of, Anne?”

“Oh, not much,” she answered, with a soft blush, for the questioner was Mr. Elster.  “Do you think your brother has hurt himself much, Val?”

“I didn’t know he had hurt himself at all,” returned Val rather coolly, who had been on the river at the time in somebody’s skiff, and saw nothing of the occurrence.  “What has he done?”

“He slipped down on the slopes and twisted his ankle.  I suppose they will be coming back soon.”

“I suppose they will,” was the answer.  Val seemed in an ungracious mood.  He and Mr. O’Moore and young Carteret were the only three who had remained behind.  Anne asked Val why he did not go and look on; and he answered, because he didn’t want to.

It was getting on for five o’clock when the boats were discerned returning.  How they clustered on the banks, watching the excited rowers, some pale with their exertions, others in a white heat!  Captain Dawkes was first, and was doing all he could to keep so; but when only a boat’s length from the winning-post another shot past him, and won by half a length.  It was the young Oxonian, Mr. Shute—­though indeed it does not much matter who it was, save that it was not Lord Hartledon.