Busy with these thoughts, and ever and
anon pausing to look round him at the
fair scenes through which he was passing,
George Dallas pursued his way along the
high road until he gained the summit, of
the little hill whence is obtained the first
view of Poynings and its grounds. There he
stopped suddenly; from that point he had
always intended to reconnoitre, but he had never
anticipated seeing what he did see—a carriage
driving through the open lodge gates, and in
the carriage reclining at his ease no less a person
than Mr. Capel Carruthers. It was he, not
a doubt about it, in the respectability of his
glossy broad-brimmed hat, in his white whiskers,
in his close-fitting dogskin gloves, in the very
double-gold eyeglass with which he was looking
at nature in a very patronising manner. Even
if he had not been short-sighted, Mr. Carruthers
was at such a distance as would utterly have
prevented him from recognising any one on the
top of the hill; but George Dallas no sooner
saw him than instinctively he crouched down by
the hedge-side and waited until the carriage was
rolling down the avenue; then he slowly raised
himself, muttering:

"What the deuce has brought him back just
now? Confound him! What on earth will she
do? It's most infernally provoking, just at this
very nick of time; he might have kept off a
few hours longer. She won't come to the
shrubbery now; she's frightened out of her life
at that old ruffian, and, by George, I shall be
put off again! After all I've said to Routh,
after all the castles in the air which I've been
building on the chance of getting free, I shall
have to slink back to town empty-handed!"
He was leaning over a gate in the hedge, and
as he spoke he shook his fist at the unconscious
county magistrate, visible in the distance now
but by the crown of his hat. "Except," continued
George, "knowing how deeply I'm involved,
she'll risk all hazards and come to the
shrubbery. Perhaps she's started now, not expecting
him, and when he reaches the house
and doesn't find her there—he's always hanging
on her trail, curse him!—he will make inquiries
and follow her. That would be worst of all,
for not only should I miss what she promised
me, but she would come to grief herself, poor
darling. Well, I must chance it, whatever happens."

He turned down a by-lane which ran at right
angles to the avenue, pursuing which he came
upon a low park paling enclosing the shrubbery.
Carefully looking round him, and finding no one
within sight, he climbed the paling, and dropped
noiselessly upon the primrose-decked bank on
the other side. All quiet; nothing moving but
the birds darting in and out among the bright
green trees, and the grasshoppers in myriads
round his feet. The walk had tired him, and he
lay down on the mossy turf and awaited his
mother's coming. Mossy turf, soft and sweet-
smelling, the loud carol of the birds, the pleasant,
soothing, slumberous sound of the trees bending
gently towards each other as the mild air rustled
in the leaves. It was long since he had experienced
these influences, but he was now under
their spell. What did they recal? Boyhood's
days; the Bishop's Wood, where they went
birds'-nesting; Duke Primus, who won "stick-
ups," and was the cock of the school, and
Charley Cope, who used to tell such good stories
in bed, and Bergemann, a German boy, who
was drowned in a pond in just such a part of
the wood as this, and—twelve o'clock rings
sharply out from the turret clock in Poynings
stables, and at its sound away fly the ghosts of
the past. Twelve o'clock, the time appointed
in his mother's letter for him to meet her in that
very spot. He rose up from the turf, and sheltering
himself behind the broad trunk of an old
tree, looked anxiously in the direction of the
house. No human being was to be seen; a few
rabbits whisked noiselessly about, their little
white tails gleaming as they disappeared in
the brushwood, but they and the birds and the
grasshoppers comprised all the life about
the place. He looked on the big trees and the
chequered shade between them, and the glimpses
of blue skylight between their topmost boughs;
he left his vantage ground and strode listlessly
to and fro; the quarter chime rung out from.
the turret, then the half hour, and still no one
came.

Some one coming at last! George Dallas's
quick eyes make out a female figure in the far
distance, not his mother, though. This woman's
back is bowed, her step slow and hesitating,
unlike Mrs. Carruthers, on whose matronly
beauty Time has as yet laid his gentlest touch.
He must stand aside, he thought, amongst the
trees until the new comer had passed by; but as
the woman approached, her gait and figure
seemed familiar to him, and when she raised
her head and looked round her as though expecting
some one, he recognised Nurse Brookes.
The old woman gave a suppressed scream as
George Dallas stepped out from among the
trees and stood before her.

"I could not help it, George," said she; "I
could not help it, though I was looking for and
expecting you at that moment, and that's more
than you were doing for me, isn't it? You
were expecting some one else, my boy?"

"Is anything the matter? Is she ill? Has
her husband found out?"

"Nothing! She's—well, as well as may be,
poor dear, and——"

"Then she hasn't been able to do what she
promised?"

"Oh, George, George, did you ever know her
fail in doing what she promised, from the days
when you where a baby until now? Better for
her, poor thing, as I've often told her, if she
hadn't——"

"Yes, yes, nurse, I know all about that, of
course; but why isn't she here now?"

"She daren't come, George: Master's
come home unexpected, and he and Miss
Clare are with her, and there is no chance for
her to make an excuse to get away. So she
just runs into her dressing-room for a minute,