yet who would prefer both to live and to express herself in a minor key.  And Egremont was not unlike her in some essential points.  The turn for irony was more pronounced on his features, yet he had the eyes of an idealist.  He, too, would choose restraint in preference to outbreak of emotion:  he too could be forcible if occasion of sufficient pressure lay upon him.  And the probability remained, that both one and the other would choose a path of life where there was small risk of their stronger faculties being demanded.

They talked of the landscape, of that exclusively, until Mrs. Ormonde’s carriage was seen reascending the hill.  Then they became silent, and stood so as their common friend drew near.  Her astonishment was not slight, but she gave it only momentary expression, then passed on to general talk.

‘I always regard you as reasonably emancipated, Annabel,’ she said, ’but none the less I felt a certain surprise in noticing you intimately conversing with a chance wayfarer.  Mr. Egremont, be good enough to seat yourself opposite to us.’

They drove back to Eastbourne.  All conversed on the way with as much ease as if they had this afternoon set forth in company from The Chestnuts.

’This is what, at school, we used to call a ‘lift,’’ said Egremont.

‘A welcome one, too, I should think,’ Mrs. Ormonde replied.  ’But you always calculated distances by ‘walks,’ I remember, when others measure by the carriage or the railway.  Annabel, you too are an excellent walker; you have often brought me to extremities in the lakes, though I wouldn’t confess it.  And pray, Mr. Egremont, for whom was your visit intended?  Shall I put you down at Mr. Newthorpe’s door, or had you my humble house in view?’

’It is natural to me to count upon The Chestnuts as a place of rest, at all events,’ Walter replied.  ’I should not have ventured to disturb Mr. Newthorpe this evening.’

‘We will wait at the door, Mrs. Ormonde,’ put in Annabel.  ’Father will come out as he always does.’

Accordingly the carriage was stopped at the Newthorpes’ house, and, as Annabel had predicted, her father sauntered forth.

‘Ah, how do you do, Egremont?’ he said, after a scarcely appreciable hesitation, giving his hand with perfect self-possession.  ’Turned up on the road, have you?’

The ladies laughed.  Annabel left the carriage, and the other two drove on to The Chestnuts.

Egremont dined and spent the evening with Mrs. Ormonde.  Their conversation was long and intimate, yet it was some time before reference was made to the subject both had most distinctly in mind.

‘I went to see Grail as soon as I got to London,’ Egremont said at length.

‘I am glad of that.  But how did you know where to find him?’

’They gave me his address at the old house.  He seems comfortably lodged with his friend Ackroyd.  Mrs. Ackroyd opened the door to me; of course I didn’t know her, and she wouldn’t know me; Grail told me who it was afterwards.  I could recall no likeness to her sister.’