“Afraid of you? No, why should I be?” she countered.

“You jumped!”

“Well, so I should think, when you startled me so much!” she said indignantly. “For goodness’ sake, Torquil, don’t playact! At all events, not to me, for, whatever your entourage may feel, I am quite unimpressed! Now, if you will be so obliging as to let me go, we will proceed on our way to the belvedere!”

He gave a low chuckle, and released his painful grip on her arm. “Strong, aren’t I?” He flexed his long fingers, regarding them with an admiring smile. “I could strangle you one-handed, you know. Wouldn’t think it, to look at me, would you?”

“No, but as I haven’t had occasion to consider the matter there’s nothing wonderful in that!” she retorted, rubbing her arm. His chagrined face stirred her sense of fun; she broke into laughter, and said: “Cry craven, Torquil! You have the wrong sow by the ear: I’m not so easily impressed!”

That made him echo her laughter. “Kate, Cousin Kate, do you call yourself a sow? I should never dare do so! You are the most unusual girl!”

“I’ve had an unusual upbringing—and well for you if you don’t call me a sow! Now, do come to the belvedere! My aunt will certainly ask if you showed it to me, and if you are obliged to say that you didn’t, it will be all holiday with you!”

He threw a quick look over his shoulder, as though he feared to see Lady Broome. “Yes. As you say! Come, let’s run!”

He caught her hand as he spoke, and forced her to run beside him down the path. She made a snatch at her skirt, but arrived, breathless, laughing, and with a torn flounce, at the belvedere. “Odious boy!” she scolded, pulling her hand out of his. “Just look at what you’ve made me do to my gown! Now I must pin it up!” She opened her reticule, drew out a paper of pins, and, sitting down on the steps, began to repair the damage.

Watching with great interest, Torquil asked if she always carried pins.

“Yes, for one never knows when one may need them. There! I hope it will hold until I can stitch it—and that my aunt doesn’t see me with a pinned-up flounce! She would take me for a regular Mab, I daresay. I may now enjoy the view—and, oh, yes, I do enjoy it! How very right your mama was to build a belvedere just here! May I enter it?”

“Do!” he said cordially.

She mounted the steps, and found herself in a summer-house, which was furnished with a table, and one chair. A book lay on the table and a standish was set beside it. Kate said: “Is it private, this room? Ought I to be in it?”

“Oh, yes! I don’t care.”

“You may not, but perhaps your mama might!”

“Why? She doesn’t sit here!”

“Is it yours, then? I’m very much obliged to you for letting me see it.” She moved to the front of the round tower, and stood resting her hands on the stone ledge, looking out between the slender pillars to the lake below, and to the trees and the flowering shrubs beyond the lake. “It is very beautiful,” she said, in a troubled tone. “Very beautiful, and yet very sad. Why should still water be so melancholy?”

“I don’t know. I don’t find it so. Come down to the bridge! There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream—only it isn’t a brook! Just a deep lake!”

She followed him down the steps to the stone bridge which was flung across the narrow end of the lake. He went ahead of her to the middle of the bridge, and stood there, leaning his arms on the parapet, and watching her with a mocking smile. “Come along!” he coaxed. “I won’t throw you in!”

She laughed. “No, won’t you?”

“Not if you don’t wish it!”

“I most certainly do not wish it!”

“Don’t you? Not at all? I often think how pleasant it would be to drown.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be in the least pleasant!” she said severely. “Are you trying to make my flesh creep? I warn you, I have a very matter-of-fact mind, and shall put you to a non-plus! What lies beyond the lake?”

“Oh, the Home Wood! Do you care to walk in it?”

“Yes, of all things! If we have time? What is the time?”

“I haven’t a notion. Does it signify?”

“I was thinking of my aunt.”

“Why?”

“She may need me to do something for her!”

“Mama? Good God, she doesn’t need anyone to do things for her!” he said impatiently. “Besides, she told me to take you all about!”

“Oh, then in that case!—” she said, yielding.

It was pleasant in the wood, sheltered from the slight but sharp wind, and with the sun filtering through the trees. There were several grassy rides cut through the undergrowth, and in a clearing bluebells had been planted. Kate exclaimed in delight at these, and could scarcely drag herself away. “How much I envy you!” she said impulsively. “I have never lived in the English countryside, until last year, and then, you know, it wasn’t springtime. The autumn tints were lovely, but oh, how it did rain!”

“Where was this?” he asked.

“In Cambridgeshire, not far from Wisbech. I was employed as governess to two detestably spoilt children, and as the elder was only seven our walks were restricted. Thank God I left before the third could be handed over to me!”

“A governess!” he said, looking very much struck. “Does Mama know this?”

“Of course she does! You may say that she rescued me!” She glanced up at him inquiringly. “Didn’t she tell you?”

“Tell me? Oh, no! How could you suppose she would? She never tells me anything!”

“Perhaps she thought I shouldn’t wish it to be known.”

“More likely she didn’t wish it to be known! Very high in the instep, my dear mama! Keeps the world at a proper distance !”

Kate was shocked, for there was a note of venom in his voice. After a moment’s hesitation, she said diffidently: “You should not speak so, least of all to me. Recollect that I have cause to be grateful to her! Indeed, she has almost overwhelmed me by her kindness!”

“Has she, by Jove? I wonder why?” he said ruminatively, his eyes narrowed, and gleaming strangely. “You may depend upon it that she has a reason! But what can it be?” His eyes slid to her face, saw in it a deep disapproval, and shifted. “Oh, are you shocked?” he said derisively. “Do you believe that one should love and honour one’s parents? Well, I don’t, do you hear me? I don’t! I am treated like a child—not allowed to do this—not allowed to do the other—kept in seclusion—spied on—” He broke off, his face convulsed with rage. He covered it with his shaking hands, and said chokingly: “She is to blame! She has my father so much under her thumb—oh, you don’t know! you can’t know! We are all afraid of her—all of us, even Matthew! Even me!”

He ended on a hysterical sob. As much moved as shocked, she ventured to lay a soothing hand on his arm, and to say: “You are her only child, and—and, I collect, not robust!” Her ,care of you must spring from her love—don’t you think?”

His hands fell; he showed her a distorted face, in which his eyes blazed “Love?” he ejaculated. “Love? Mama? Oh, that’s good! That’s rich, by God!” Suddenly he stiffened, and grasped her wrist, listening intently. “I thought as much! Matthew, or Badger, spying on me! If they ask you what I’ve been saying to you, don’t tell them—either of them! Promise me!”

She had only time to utter the desired assurance before his hand left her wrist. Dr Delabole stepped into the clearing, and waved to them, saying: “So here you are! “Depend upon it,” I told her ladyship, “Torquil has taken Miss Kate to see the bluebells!” My dear young people, have you the least notion of what the time may be?”

“Well, I did ask my cousin, when he suggested a stroll through the wood, but he said it didn’t signify! And then we came upon the bluebells!” replied Kate gaily.

“Beautiful, aren’t they? One could spend an hour, feasting one’s eyes upon them! But it is past noon, and a nuncheon awaits you!”

“Past noon! Oh, we must go back instantly!” exclaimed Kate, stricken.

“On the contrary! We must go on!” said the doctor, laughing gently. “The wood dwindles into the park, and if we continue down this ride we shall find ourselves within a stone’s throw of the house. And what, Miss Kate, did you think of the belvedere?”

He had fallen into step beside her, but it was Torquil who answered him, from beyond Kate. “How did you know I had taken her there?” he demanded suspiciously.

“Well, by the process of deduction, dear boy!” replied the doctor apologetically. “Having seen you set out from the house into the gardens, and having failed to discover you there, I naturally assumed that you had done so! When I drew another blank at the belvedere, it dawned on my powerful intellect that you must have crossed the bridge into the wood! And lo, here you are!”

“Oh!” said Torquil, disconcerted.

In a few minutes they were crossing the park, within sight of the house. They entered it by the front door, and were met by Lady Broome, who threw up her hands, and said quizzingly: “Oh, you abominable children! Where did you find them, Doctor?”

“Where I thought I should find them, ma’am! Looking at the bluebells!”

“Ah, then I must forgive them! And should perhaps blame myself for not having warned you, Kate, that Torquil has no idea of time! Eh, my son?”

She pinched his chin as she spoke, and then slid her hand in his arm, and went with him into one of the saloons, saying over her shoulder: “I don’t stand on ceremony with you, Kate! Are you quite famished? You don’t deserve it, either of you, but you shall have a nuncheon!”

The table in the saloon was set for two, and bore a selection of cold meats, and fruit. Lady Broome took her place at the head of it, and carved some slices of chicken for them.