“Quite true!” he said, as he read the lines half aloud, a tender smile lighting up the gravity of his deep thoughtful eyes—­“True to the life, so far as the Guinevere of to-day is concerned!  But let the simile stop there, John, my boy!  Don’t carry it any further!  Don’t deceive yourself as to your own demerits!  You are nothing but an old-fashioned country parson—­a regular humdrum, middle-aged fogey!—­that’s what you are!—­so, even though you have fallen in love (which at your time of life is a folly you ought to be ashamed of), don’t for Heaven’s sake imagine yourself a Lancelot, John!—­it won’t do!”

XXIX

Over the moist ground, and under the bare branches that dripped slow tears of past rain, the brilliant hunting train swept onward, Maryllia riding in the midst, till they came out on a bare stretch of moorland covered with sparse patches of gorse and fir.  Here they all paused, listening to the cry of the huntsman in the bottoms, and watching the hounds as they drew up wind.

The eyes of every man present wandered now and again to Maryllia in admiration,—­none of them had ever seen her look so lovely, so bright, so entirely bewitching.  She was always at her best in the saddle.  When she had paid her first visit to America with her uncle and aunt as a girl of sixteen, she had been sent for the benefit of her health to stay with some people who owned a huge Californian ‘ranch,’ and there she learned to ride on horses that were scarcely broken in, and to gallop across miles and miles of prairie, bareheaded to the burning sun, and had, in such pastime, felt the glorious sense of that savage and splendid freedom which is the true heritage of every child of nature,—­a heritage too often lost in the tangled ways of over-civilisation, and seldom or never regained.  The dauntless spirit of joyous liberty was in her blood,—­she loved the fresh air and vigorous exercise, and was a graceful, daring rider, never knowing what it was to feel a single pulse of fear.  Just now she was radiantly happy.  She was glad to be at home again,—­and still more glad that her plans for eluding the pursuit of Lord Roxmouth had completely succeeded.  He had been left absolutely in the dark as to her whereabouts.  His letters to her had been returned unanswered, through her solicitors, who declined to make any statement with regard to her movements, and, growing weary at last of fruitless enquiry, he bad left England to winter in Egypt with a party of wealthy friends, her aunt, Mrs. Fred Vancourt, being among the number.  She owed this pleasing news to Louis Gigue, who had assisted her in her flight from the persecution of her detested wooer.  Gigue had, through his influence, managed to introduce her under an assumed name, as a friend of his own to certain poor nuns In a Brittany convent, who were only too willing to receive her as a paying guest for a couple of months, and to ask no questions concerning her.  There she had stayed with exemplary patience and resignation,—­lonely indeed, yet satisfied to have made good her escape for the time being, and, as she imagined, to have saved John Walden from any possibility of annoyance chancing to him through her, or by her means.  She would not consent to have even Cicely with her, lest any accidental clue to her hiding-place might be found and followed.