‘This is Morton Hollow,’ said Rollo, looking at her.  ’Can I help you do any wild things?’

‘The houses are like him,’ said Hazel, turning away, and her colour deepening under the look.  ‘Such a place!’

She might say ‘such a place.’  As they went on the character of it became visible more and more.  There were dark, high, close factories, whence the hum of machinery issued; poor, mean dwellings, small and large, clustered here and there in the intermediate spaces, from which if any sounds came, they were less pleasant than the buzz of machines.  Scarce any humanity was abroad; what there was deepened the impression of the dreariness of the place.

‘Mr. Rollo,’ said Hazel, at last.  ’I hope your friend does not live down here?’

‘I don’t think I have any friend here,’ he answered, rather thoughtfully.  He had been riding slowly for the last few minutes, looking intently at what he was passing.  Now, at a sudden turn of the road, where the valley made a sharp angle, they came upon an open carriage standing still.  Two ladies were in it.  Rollo lifted his hat, but the lady nearest them leaned out and cried ‘Stop, stop!’

A gentleman must obey such a behest.  Rollo wheeled and stood still.

‘Where are you going?’ said the lady.  Probably Rollo did not hear, for he looked at her calmly without answering.

‘Is that the little lady?’ said the speaker, stretching her head out a little further to catch better sight of Wych Hazel.  ’Aren’t you going to introduce me, Dane?  I must know her, you know.’

It is quite impossible to describe on paper the flourish with which Rollo’s horse responded.  Like a voluntary before the piece begins, like the elegant and marvellous sweep of lines with which a scribe surrounds his signature, the bay curvetted and wheeled and danced before the proposed introduction.  Very elegant in its way, and to any one not in the secret impossible to divine whether it was the beast or his rider at play.  Finally brought up on the other side of Wych Hazel, when Rollo spoke.

’Miss Kennedy, I have the honour to present Mrs. Coles, who wishes to be known to you.’

As Miss Kennedy bent her head, she had one glimpse of a long pale face, surrounded with bandeaux of fair hair, which looked towards her eagerly.  Before she had well lifted her head again her horse was moving, and the next instant dashing along at full speed; the bay close alongside.  The mills were almost passed; a very few minutes brought them quite away from the settlement, and they began to mount to higher ground by a steep hilly path.

’Well!’—­said Hazel, looking at her companion.

‘Well?’ said Rollo, innocently.

She laughed.

‘As if I did not know better than that!’

‘I wish I did,’ said Rollo.  ’Now, do you know what you are coming to?’

’No, not a bit.  I said I wouldn’t come through that place—­but when you are in a strange land—­and in charge of a—­strange!—­ cavalier—­’