IT was a fine sunshiny day; Mrs. Lewson’s spirits began to improve. “I have always held the belief,” the worthy old woman confessed, “that bright weather brings good luck — of course provided the day is not a Friday. This is Wednesday. Cheer up, Miss.”

The messenger returned with good news. Mr. Arthur had been as merry as usual. He had made fun of another letter of good advice, received without a signature. “But Mrs. Lewson must have her way,” he said. “My love to the old dear — I’ll start two hours later, and be back to dinner at five.”

“Where did Mr. Arthur give you that message?” Iris inquired.

“At the stables, Miss, while I was putting up the horse. The men about were all on the broad grin when they heard Mr. Arthur’s message.”

Still in a morbid state of mind, Iris silently regretted that the message had not been written, instead of being delivered by word of mouth. Here, again, she (like the wild lord) had been afraid of listeners.

The hours wore slowly on until it was past four o’clock. Iris could endure the suspense no longer. “It’s a lovely afternoon,” she said to Mrs. Lewson. “Let us take a walk along the road, and meet Arthur.” To this proposal the housekeeper readily agreed.

It was nearly five o’clock when they reached a place at which a by-road branched off, through a wood, from the highway which they had hitherto followed. Mrs. Lewson found a seat on a felled tree. “We had better not go any farther,” she said.

Iris asked if there was any reason for this.

There was an excellent reason. A few yards farther on, the high road had been diverted from the straight line (in the interest of a large agricultural village), and was then directed again into its former course. The by-road through the wood served as a short cut, for horsemen and pedestrians, from one divergent point to the other. It was next to a certainty that Arthur would return by the short cut. But if accident or caprice led to his preferring the highway, it was clearly necessary to wait for him within view of both the roads.

Too restless to submit to a state of passive expectation, Iris proposed to follow the bridle path through the wood for a little way, and to return if she failed to see anything of Arthur. “You are tired,” she said kindly to her companion: “pray don’t move.”

Mrs. Lewson looked needlessly uneasy: “You might lose yourself, Miss. Mind you keep to the path!”

Iris followed the pleasant windings of the woodland track. In the hope of meeting Arthur she considerably extended the length of her walk. The white line of the high road, as it passed the farther end of the wood, showed itself through the trees. She turned at once to rejoin Mrs. Lewson.

On her way back she made a discovery. A ruin which she had not previously noticed showed itself among the trees on her left hand. Her curiosity was excited; she strayed aside to examine it more closely. The crumbling walls, as she approached them, looked like the remains of an ordinary dwelling-house. Age is ess............