Late that afternoon, she reached Mildenham.  Winton met her at the station.  And on the drive up, they passed the cottage where Daphne Wing was staying.  It stood in front of a small coppice, a creepered, plain-fronted, little brick house, with a garden still full of sunflowers, tenanted by the old jockey, Pettance, his widowed daughter, and her three small children.  “That talkative old scoundrel,” as Winton always called him, was still employed in the Mildenham stables, and his daughter was laundress to the establishment.  Gyp had secured for Daphne Wing the same free, independent, economic agent who had watched over her own event; the same old doctor, too, was to be the presiding deity.  There were no signs of life about the cottage, and she would not stop, too eager to be at home again, to see the old rooms, and smell the old savour of the house, to get to her old mare, and feel its nose nuzzling her for sugar.  It was so good to be back once more, feeling strong and well and able to ride.  The smile of the inscrutable Markey at the front door was a joy to her, even the darkness of the hall, where a gleam of last sunlight fell across the skin of Winton’s first tiger, on which she had so often sunk down dead tired after hunting.  Ah, it was nice to be at home!

In her mare’s box, old Pettance was putting a last touch to cleanliness.  His shaven, skin-tight, wicked old face, smiled deeply.  He said in honeyed tones: 

“Good evenin’, miss; beautiful evenin’, ma’am!” And his little burning brown eyes, just touched by age, regarded her lovingly.

“Well, Pettance, how are you?  And how’s Annie, and how are the children?  And how’s this old darling?”

“Wonderful, miss; artful as a kitten.  Carry you like a bird to-morrow, if you’re goin’ out.”

“How are her legs?”

And while Gyp passed her hand down those iron legs, the old mare examined her down the back of her neck.

“They ’aven’t filled not once since she come in—­she was out all July and August; but I’ve kept ’er well at it since, in ’opes you might be comin’.”

“They feel splendid.”  And, still bending down, Gyp asked:  “And how is your lodger—­the young lady I sent you?”

“Well, ma’am, she’s very young, and these very young ladies they get a bit excited, you know, at such times; I should say she’ve never been—­” With obvious difficulty he checked the words, “to an ’orse before!” “Well, you must expect it.  And her mother, she’s a dreadful funny one, miss.  She does needle me!  Oh, she puts my back up properly!  No class, of course—­that’s where it is.  But this ’ere nurse—­well, you know, miss, she won’t ’ave no nonsense; so there we are.  And, of course, you’re bound to ’ave ’ighsteria, a bit—­losin’ her ’usband as young as that.”

Gyp could feel his wicked old smile even before she raised herself.  But what did it matter if he did guess?  She knew he would keep a stable secret.