“Hallo, Pendyce!” he called out heartily; “didn’t see you on the platform.  How’s your wife?”

Mr. Pendyce, turning to answer, met the little burning eyes of Captain Bellew, who came out third.  They failed to salute each other, and Bellow, springing into his cart, wrenched his mare round, circled the farmers’ gigs, and, sitting forward, drove off at a furious pace.  His groom, running at full speed, clung to the cart and leaped on to the step behind.  Lord Quarryman’s wagonette backed itself into the place left vacant.  And the mistake of Providence was rectified.

“Cracked chap, that fellow Bellew.  D’you see anything of him?”

Mr. Pendyce answered: 

“No; and I want to see less.  I wish he’d take himself off!”

His lordship smiled.

“A huntin’ country seems to breed fellows like that; there’s always one of ’em to every pack of hounds.  Where’s his wife now?  Good-lookin’ woman; rather warm member, eh?”

It seemed to Mr. Pendyce that Lord Quarryman’s eyes searched his own with a knowing look, and muttering “God knows!” he vanished into his brougham.

Lord Quarryman looked kindly at his horses.

He was not a man who reflected on the whys, the wherefores, the becauses, of this life.  The good God had made him Lord Quarryman, had made his eldest son Lord Quantock; the good God had made the Gaddesdon hounds—­it was enough!

When Mr. Pendyce reached home he went to his dressing-room.  In a corner by the bath the spaniel John lay surrounded by an assortment of his master’s slippers, for it was thus alone that he could soothe in measure the bitterness of separation.  His dark brown eye was fixed upon the door, and round it gleamed a crescent moon of white.  He came to the Squire fluttering his tail, with a slipper in his mouth, and his eye said plainly:  ’Oh, master, where have you been?  Why have you been so long?  I have been expecting you ever since half-past ten this morning!’

Mr. Pendyce’s heart opened a moment and closed again.  He said “John!” and began to dress for dinner.

Mrs. Pendyce found him tying his white tie.  She had plucked the first rosebud from her garden; she had plucked it because she felt sorry for him, and because of the excuse it would give her to go to his dressing-room at once.

“I’ve brought you a buttonhole, Horace.  Did you see him?”

“No.”

Of all answers this was the one she dreaded most.  She had not believed that anything would come of an interview; she had trembled all day long at the thought of their meeting; but now that they had not met she knew by the sinking in her heart that anything was better than uncertainty.  She waited as long as she could, then burst out: 

“Tell me something, Horace!”

Mr. Pendyce gave her an angry glance.

“How can I tell you, when there’s nothing to tell?  I went to his club.  He’s not living there now.  He’s got rooms, nobody knows where.  I waited all the afternoon.  Left a message at last for him to come down here to-morrow.  I’ve sent for Paramor, and told him to come down too.  I won’t put up with this sort of thing.”