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Irishman told me you had gone out for a ride in this direction. I am not sure, but I wouldn’t like to swear that he didn’t wink sympathetically at me. Anyway, I have tracked you out, you see, and I intend to ride home with you.”

“Very well; let us go before these good people come out of church.”

Campbell mounted her on the old chestnut, and they rode off towards the valley. Both turned round for a moment and took a look at the blue-shadowed hills, and the sunset fading under the low ribbed line of cloud, as if the scene were something memorable.

“This is something like a garden-party!” and turning round, he caught her eye examining him with the questioning interest of a ten years’ interval. They both laughed like children , conscious of each other’s thoughts, and then rode on through the brimming valley, where the grass was still running and playing with the wind, and shooting into light and shade under the last reflections of sunset.

“Well, what have you been doing with yourself all this time?” he said at last, after a pause full of recollections. “You are a great artist now, I suppose.”

“Oh, no, no; just the other way. I have lost my voice, and can’t sing a note.”