They had gone on some half mile in this way when they reached a spot on which a green ride led away from the main road through the trees to the left.  “You remember this place, do you not?” said Violet.  Phineas declared that he remembered it well.  “I must go round by the woodman’s cottage.  You won’t mind coming?” Phineas said that he would not mind, and trotted on to tell them in the carriage.

“Where is she going?” asked Lady Baldock; and then, when Phineas explained, she begged the Earl to go back to Violet.  The Earl, feeling the absurdity of this, declared that Violet knew her way very well herself, and thus Phineas got his opportunity.

They rode on almost without speaking for nearly a mile, cantering through the trees, and then they took another turn to the right, and came upon the cottage.  They rode to the door, and spoke a word or two to the woman there, and then passed on.  “I always come here when I am at Saulsby,” said Violet, “that I may teach myself to think kindly of Lord Chiltern.”

“I understand it all,” said Phineas.

“He used to be so nice;—­and is so still, I believe, only that he has taught himself to be so rough.  Will he ever change, do you think?”

Phineas knew that in this emergency it was his especial duty to be honest.  “I think he would be changed altogether if we could bring him here,—­so that he should live among his friends.”

“Do you think he would?  We must put our heads together, and do it.  Don’t you think that it is to be done?”

Phineas replied that he thought it was to be done.  “I’ll tell you the truth at once, Miss Effingham,” he said.  “You can do it by a single word.”

“Yes;—­yes;” she said; “but I do not mean that;—­without that.  It is absurd, you know, that a father should make such a condition as that.”  Phineas said that he thought it was absurd; and then they rode on again, cantering through the wood.  He had been bold to speak to her about Lord Chiltern as he had done, and she had answered just as he would have wished to be answered.  But how could he press his suit for himself while she was cantering by his side?

Presently they came to rough ground over which they were forced to walk, and he was close by her side.  “Mr. Finn,” she said, “I wonder whether I may ask a question?”

“Any question,” he replied.

“Is there any quarrel between you and Lady Laura?”

“None.”

“Or between you and him?”

“No;—­none.  We are greater allies than ever.”

“Then why are you not going to be at Loughlinter?  She has written to me expressly saying you would not be there.”

He paused a moment before he replied.  “It did not suit,” he said at last.

“It is a secret then?”

“Yes;—­it is a secret.  You are not angry with me?”

“Angry; no.”

“It is not a secret of my own, or I should not keep it from you.”