Through the window he could see Antonia in her scarlet Tam-o’-shanter, swinging her stick, and he got up feigning unconcern.  Just then Toddles came bounding up against his sister.  They went off arm in arm.  She had seen him at the window, yet she gave no friendly glance; Shelton felt more miserable than ever.  He stepped out upon the drive.  There was a lurid, gloomy canopy above; the elm-trees drooped their heavy blackish green, the wonted rustle of the aspen-tree was gone, even the rooks were silent.  A store of force lay heavy on the heart of nature.  He started pacing slowly up and down, his pride forbidding him to follow her, and presently sat down on an old stone seat that faced the road.  He stayed a long time staring at the elms, asking himself what he had done and what he ought to do.  And somehow he was frightened.  A sense of loneliness was on him, so real, so painful, that he shivered in the sweltering heat.  He was there, perhaps, an hour, alone, and saw nobody pass along the road.  Then came the sound of horse’s hoofs, and at the same time he heard a motor-car approaching from the opposite direction.  The rider made appearance first, riding a grey horse with an Arab’s high set head and tail.  She was holding him with difficulty, for the whirr of the approaching car grew every moment louder.  Shelton rose; the car flashed by.  He saw the horse stagger in the gate-way, crushing its rider up against the gatepost.

He ran, but before he reached the gate the lady was on foot, holding the plunging horse’s bridle.

“Are you hurt?” cried Shelton breathlessly, and he, too, grabbed the bridle.  “Those beastly cars!”

“I don’t know,” she said.  “Please don’t; he won’t let strangers touch him.”

Shelton let go, and watched her coax the horse.  She was rather tall, dressed in a grey habit, with a grey Russian cap upon her head, and he suddenly recognised the Mrs. Foliot whom they had been talking of at lunch.

“He ’ll be quiet now,” she said, “if you would n’t mind holding him a minute.”

She gave the reins to him, and leaned against the gate.  She was very pale.

“I do hope he has n’t hurt you,” Shelton said.  He was quite close to her, well able to see her face—­a curious face with high cheek-bones and a flatfish moulding, enigmatic, yet strangely passionate for all its listless pallor.  Her smiling, tightened lips were pallid; pallid, too, her grey and deep-set eyes with greenish tints; above all, pale the ashy mass of hair coiled under her grey cap.

“Th-thanks!” she said; “I shall be all right directly.  I’m sorry to have made a fuss.”

She bit her lips and smiled.

“I ’m sure you’re hurt; do let me go for—­” stammered Shelton.  “I can easily get help.”

“Help!” she said, with a stony little laugh; “oh, no, thanks!”

She left the gate, and crossed the road to where he held the horse.  Shelton, to conceal embarrassment, looked at the horse’s legs, and noticed that the grey was resting one of them.  He ran his hand down.