"Then you shall wait here for us. Get the maid to pack up a hamper; I'll bring mother, and we will find a picnic ground somewhere on Gorsthwaite Moor. You need not walk more than a mile all told, and it is a sin for you to miss a day like this." But Griff did not reach Marshcotes. His stride slackened to a saunter, and even the saunter was too much exertion by the time he had gone half the distance. Knowing that Mrs. Lomax would pass him on her way to Gorsthwaite, he tumbled into a warm bed of heather, lit his pipe, and watched the shifting colours of the moor. The pulsing crimson-purple of the heather, shot here and there with fainter splashes of heliotrope, the hoarse chuckle of the grouse, and shriller wail of the plover, the peaty reek creeping from a rush-girdled marsh on his right--all these things were emphatic in their assertion that it was exceeding good to be alive. His thoughts went out to the child that was to be born to him: pride in his race, and zeal for its continuance, quickened the paternal instinct in him; he travelled far into the future, and saw another Lomax at the Manor, strong as himself, who would poach as his fathers had poached before him, who would ride fearlessly and fight like a man, and keep a big slice of his heart for the love that should one day come to him. The sunlight grew fainter. A fitful breeze ruffled the heather-tops. A haze crept across the sky, from the horizon upwards. The sun failed altogether, and flying squadrons of mist appeared, now making eager forward rushes, now wheeling, gyrating, eddying to and fro in their efforts to dodge the pursuing breeze. The mist-wreaths grew denser; they turned but little now, and fled across the darkening purple like a band of hunted witches. Still Griff did not move. He was watching the elfin-revel, and thinking of the old moor legend that a White Lady rides on the swirling mist, tempting men to their doom in the bogs that take, but render never again. "It would need a marvellous White Lady to tempt me astray nowadays," murmured Griff, and laughed as he thought of Kate. A voice came out of the mist. "Bertie, is that you? How can you lie on your back there, while I am dying of fright in the middle of this horrid moor?" Griff knew the voice at once; it had thrilled him too often in times past to admit of doubt. He rose slowly and lifted his cap to a figure that loomed out of the fog-wall a few yards away. "No, I'm not Dereham. Perhaps you have forgotten me, Mrs. Ogilvie?" he said. She came close up to him--a little hothouse woman, with a delicate, rounded waist, and lips that were always either pouting or pleading. The blush-rose tints deepened against the waxy white of her cheeks, as she held out her hand. After a pause--