“Abominable to have taken you by surprise!” Julia said gaily. “But I couldn’t resist!”

“Why should you?” Jenny returned. “I’ll have a message sent down to Lynton directly: we are getting in the last of the harvest, you know, and he’s helping on one of the farms.”

“Helping?” Julia echoed.

“Yes,” said Jenny, with her small, tight smile. “Dressed up in a smock too, which I can’t say becomes him. But that’s his notion of enjoyment! I’ve this instant come back from taking him a nuncheon. Plum cake and beer iswhat the reapers get at this hour, but beer he can’t stomach: it makes him bilious. Now, do you all step this way, and partake of a nuncheon too!”

When Adam came in he found the visitors in the Prior’s Parlour, still sitting over the remains of a light repast. He greeted Julia with the ease of long friendship, but he could not keep the warmth from his eyes when they rested on her. She gave him her hand, a smile that was wistful in her own eyes, but a quizzing speech on her lips, “Your smock, Fanner Giles! Where is it? I am disappointed!”

“Ah, the farmer always puts off his smock when he has company!” he retorted. He shook hands with Rockhill. “How do you do? And — ?” A lift of the eyebrow put Jenny in mind of her duty; she performed the necessary introduction; and had the satisfaction of seeing him engage the rather shy young couple in a conversation that he soon made general. She had herself no talent for welding ill-assorted persons into one party, and since the Kilverleys were frightened of Rockhill, suspecting him of satire every time he uttered one of his languid remarks, they had been largely silent until Adam’s arrival. But in a very few minutes they were chatting happily about the day’s expedition, Miss Kilverley joining Julia in rapturous appreciation of the beauties of Croyland, and Mr Kilverley deriving entertainment from Rockhill’s disclosure that the Abbey had been founded by King Ethelbald.

Upon Miss Kilverley’s expressing the hope that she might be allowed to see a little more of Fontley, Adam replied: “Why, certainly! But you will be disappointed, I’m afraid. We don’t compare with Croyland, you know.”

“Oh — ! That lovely arch!” she protested. “And is not this room very ancient?”

“Well, it has always been called the Prior’s Parlour,” he admitted. “Part of the outer wall is thought to be original, but the house is more Tudor than mediaeval.”

“Don’t disparage it on that account!” Julia said. “I have sometimes thought that all the ages meet in it, and have indulged the fancy that one might see monks in the gallery that used to be the dortoire; a lady in a farthingale vanishing through a doorway; or a cavalier, with his lace and love-locks, going before one down a corridor.”

“Orlando Deveril, for instance?” said Adam, regarding her in tender amusement “None of my worthier forebears ever pleased you half as well as that chucklehead!”

She winced. “How can you talk so? You should be proud of him!” She turned to her friend. “You will see his portrait presently! the noblest countenance, and with such melancholy eyes — as though he knew himself to be fated! I told you: he is the one who raised a troop, and rode with it to the King’s assistance!”

“And subsequently got it cut to pieces in its first engagement,” interpolated Adam. “The kind of officer, Miss Kilverley, always to be found heroically exposed to the enemy’s fire. We suffered under just such an one last year: very gallant — and no general for the Light Bobs!”

She was uncertain whether to laugh or to be shocked; Julia said: “You are funning, but I don’t care for jokes on such a subject!”

“Well,” said Jenny, bringing the discussion to a prosaic end, “I’m glad to say I haven’t seen him, which I’m thankful for, because I shouldn’t like it if Fontley was haunted, and you may depend upon it there’s not many of the servants would remain above a sennight if they took it into their heads they might come on a monk round a corner.” She rose, saying: “If we’ve all finished, we’ll go up to the gallery, shall we?”

She nodded to Adam to escort the party, and would have followed had not Rockhill, lingering beside her, said: “Do you wish to go too? I’m persuaded you’d find it a dead bore — as I should, being perfectly well-acquainted with Fontley’s antiquities. Let us leave Lynton to his irreverences, and take a turn about the gardens!”

She was a little surprised, but perfectly willing. As they walked down the vaulted corridor to the Great Hall, she asked him if he were staying with the Oversleys at Beckenhurst.

“No, but in the immediate vicinity,” he replied. “I am visiting relations — remote, but one should never ignore even the dullest members of one’s family, should one? Particularly when they reside precisely where one most wishes to be!” She cast a quick look up at him, and saw his thin lips curl into a smile which put such innocents as the Kilverleys upon their guard.

“Just so!” he said, answering the enquiry in her eyes. “You have a great deal of good sense, Lady Lynton, and you are perfectly right in your assumption.”

“I don’t know that,” she responded bluntly. “You’ll forgive me if I speak too plainly, my lord, but it looks to me as if you was dangling after Miss Oversley!”

“Yes, and at my age too!” he murmured. “I learn on the highest authority that I am generally held to be indulging a fit of gallantry — senile, I fear.”

“Well, that’s nonsense, but it’s not to be wondered at that no one should think it more than a flirtation, for there must be twenty years between you, my lord!”

“Rather more,” he confessed wryly, ushering her out into the garden. “But I’m not, I do assure you, senile, ma’am!”

“No, but, myself, I should never have thought — However, it’s no business of mine!”

“No? You disappoint me!”

“I don’t know why I should,” she replied defensively.

“No, no, don’t fence with me! I’m persuaded we understand one another very well. You would naturally be glad to see Miss Oversley married: I have every intention of obliging you in the matter!”

She paused at the entrance to the rose-garden, to look frowningly up at him. “Why do you tell me so?” she demanded.

“Well, do you know, I like you, Lady Lynton,” he replied. “You compelled both my respect and my gratitude upon the occasion of our first meeting. An awkward — one might almost say a disastrous situation, rendered trivial by your admirable presence of mind then, and later by conduct as magnanimous as it was shrewd.”

“Oh, fiddle!” she said roughly, flushing, and walking on into the rose-garden.

He laughed, and followed her. “If you like! But you must allow me to be grateful — and to pay my debts, if you please! You were a little dismayed, were you not, when you saw who had come to visit you? I fancy you thought me positively beef-witted to have lent myself to the expedition. But I am not at all beef-witted. I am reasonably certain, ma’am, that neither you nor I have anything to fear in regarding our loved ones’ meetings with complaisance.”

“You are the strangest creature!” she exclaimed. “How can you wish to marry Julia, if you know she loves Lynton? You do know it, don’t you?”

“But of course! I have been her most sympathetic confidant — perfectly sincerely, too. One remembers one’s own first love — with a tiny pang, and such infinite thankfulness! I shan’t grudge Julia her deliciously nostalgic memories, or be so abominably gross as to suggest to her that her touching little romance was no more real than a fairy story. She won’t indulge them often: only when something has occurred to put her into the hips! And then, poor darling, she will quite forget having made the painful discovery that Lynton really bears very little resemblance to the Prince Charming of her imagination — a creation I find slightly nauseating — but pray don’t tell her that I said so!”

She smiled, but said impatiently: “Oh, Julia knows nothing about Lynton! I don’t understand her — never did! I’m sure I hope you may, but it has always seemed to me that she’s one who would break her heart over a sparrow she found dead in the gutter as easily as she’s done over Lynton. I don’t doubt she’ll recover soon enough, for it’s my belief she hoaxed herself into love with Adam, the way I’ve seen her hoax herself into a high fever, often and often!” She stopped, clipping her lips together, and, after an infinitesimal pause, changed the subject.

He made no attempt to bring her back to it, but talked amusingly to her on a number of idle topics until their stroll through various gardens brought them back to the house again. Voices led them past it to the chapel rains, where they found the rest of the party. Julia was seated on a fallen block of masonry, her frivolous parasol tilted to protect her complexion from the sun, her gaze fixed in melancholy wonder on Adam, who was standing a few paces away, talking to Mr Kilverley. Miss Kilverley was wandering about the ruins, and occasionally calling out appreciative comments as she discovered a fragment of dog-tooth, or a lichened tomb. Mr Kilverley seemed to have become surprisingly loquacious, and when Jenny and Rockhill drew within earshot such overheard phrases as ten coombs to the acre, and improved rotation, informed them that Mr Kilverley’s knowledge was not confined to horses and hounds: he was an enthusiastic agriculturist.

“Ah, the poor little one!” exclaimed Rockhill, under his breath. “Own, Lady Lynton, that it is a picture to wring compassion from a heart of stone!”

Julia turned her head, as she heard the approaching footsteps, and smiled. Her smile was always lovely, and just now it held real pleasure, and more than a suggestion of relief. Her soft eyes were raised to Rockhill’s face as he went towards her, and when he held out his hand she put one of hers into it, and rose, allowing him to lead her a little away. As they walked slowly round the ruins, Julia’s hand in Rockhill’s arm, she sighed, and said: “It is so beautiful, isn’t it? Such reflections as these crumbling stones give rise to! I saw it once by moonlight — so still, so mysterious, brooding in silence over the past! How is it possible to look upon these ruins, and to think only that they make a capital ground for playing at hide-and-seek?”