"Thank you, no. I shall be late for luncheon as it is, I am afraid. If your--your husband will be kind enough to show me my way----" "I'll come with you; you will never find it alone." "No, _please_ don't. I can manage quite well if you put me into the road." "Nonsense. You would drown in a bog, or something. Kate, if mother walks over now the mist has cleared, will you tell her I shall be back in the afternoon? Don't wait dinner." At the end of ten minutes' walking-- "You were very careful to call me Mrs. Ogilvie before your wife. Is she jealous in these cases, Griff?" cooed Sybil, feeling it wiser to taunt than to cry, since she had only the two alternatives from which to choose. Griff muttered something softly to himself, and they walked on in unbroken silence for another mile. The cold, impersonal bearing of her companion roused something of Mrs. Ogilvie's pitiful prudence. "You won't--how shall I put it?--I have made myself ridiculous--you won't breathe a word of it to any one, will you--to Bertie Dereham, I mean, or----" He simply stared at her in unfeigned wonder. Ill-advised her late confession might have been, but it had seemed passionate enough. Surely she might have let this old hedging mood of hers wait until another day. "Don't look so shocked, Griff!" she went on hurriedly. "Of course I don't for a moment think you will--be unlike yourself in that way--only----" "Only you are not sure; thanks," put in Griff, curtly, looking straight before him. She put her hand on his sleeve. "Don't be harsh, dear; we have not long together." He shook off her touch, laughing bitterly. How could he feel compassion for her, when she let her detestable little suspicions kill pity before it was half awake? "No, we have not long together, Sybil. Let us talk of the last new play, or the old after-theatre suppers, or some topic we are sure to agree upon." "Be quiet!" she cried, the tears starting to her eyes. But the tears were wasted, for Griff would not look at her. Mrs. Ogilvie, now that she had disposed of her mean instinct towards prudence, came swiftly back to the desire for a forbidden plaything which she mistook for love; she shivered at thought of her coming loneliness; she was ready to accept this half-tamed bear on his own terms, though he had laughed at her pleading and slighted her tenderness. She wanted him either to kiss or to thrash her--it scarcely mattered which, so long as she broke through his indifference. They reached the wind-driven fir-tree under which Roddick and Janet Laverack had kept their Christmas tryst. The sun was warm on Frender's Folly, but no sunshine could overlay the brooding sadness of the place; rather, there seemed an added desolation, as when light shines dumbly on a dead man's eyes. Sybil stopped, and pointed across the smooth-shaven lawns that lay beneath them. "Isn't it like a grave? Griff, you don't know how eerie it is down there; I dread going back to it."