‘Perhaps I could tell Mr. Penwyn something about his _protégée’s_ antecedents that would make him change his opinion.’ ‘Then pray do. But is it anything very dreadful?—murder, or anything of that kind?’ asked Lady Cheshunt, with a scared look. ‘You make me feel as if we were all going to have our throats cut.’ ‘It is nothing very dreadful. Perhaps hardly enough to cause any change in Mr. Penwyn’s opinion. I remember that woman plying her trade as a gipsy fortune-teller at Eborsham, the day before my poor friend, James Penwyn, was murdered. She in a manner—by the merest accident, of course—foretold James’s early death.’ ‘Dear me, what an extraordinary thing! And you find her, two years afterwards, in Churchill Penwyn’s service. That is very curious.’ ‘The whirligig of time brings many curious things to pass, Lady Cheshunt. But here are the ladies.’ They went to the porch, where the sociable was waiting for them with a pair of fine bays, impatient to be gone. It was not an inviting day for open-air excursions, but just one of those grey afternoons which have a kind of poetry—a sentiment all their own. The sombre expanse of moorland, dun colour against the grey, had a fine effect. They took a longish drive, made a circuit, and came round to the new plantation, where Churchill was superintending the work, seated on his favourite, Tarpan, an animal which had of late shown himself unmanageable by any one except his master, and had been the cause of more than one groom’s retirement from a service which was in every other respect admirable. Churchill seemed to have a peculiar fancy for the somewhat ill-conditioned brute, though he did not often ride him, on account of Mrs. Penwyn’s apprehensions. ‘My dear love, he will never throw _me_,’ Churchill said, in answer to his wife’s request that Tarpan should be disposed of. ‘If I were not thoroughly convinced of that I would part with him. The brute understands me, and I understand him, which neither of those fellows did. And I like his pace and action better than those of any other horse in the stable. Nothing revives me like a gallop on Tarpan.’ Wonderful to see the influence of Madge Penwyn’s presence on her husband, as Maurice saw it to-day. The moody brow relaxed its contemplative frown, the thoughtful eye brightened, while a gentle pressure of the hand and a fondly whispered greeting welcomed the wife. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure, Madge,’ he said. ‘I did not think you would drive to-day.’ ‘I wanted to show Mr. Clissold your new plantation, Churchill.’ They all alighted, and Churchill showed them his newly planted groves, the graceful feathery Norwegian saplings, a ship-load of them brought from Norway for his special benefit, rhododendrons planted in between, and here and there a mountain ash or a copper beech to give colour and variety.