The next morning, at breakfast time, when the wine was gone out of his head and his temper was cooler, Harry was a little ashamed of his bet, for to increase his compunction came the very strongest doubts as to his power to win it. However, when George asked with a sneer whether he did not wish the bet were off, his brother answered fiercely that he never made bets which he did not intend to keep. So George only shrugged his shoulders, told him he was a fool, and walked off to the stable-yard, already looking upon his brother’s favorite horse, Fire King, as his own by right, although he did not expect to enter into possession without a struggle. In spite of his ostentatiously cynical speeches the night before, his own respect for the demure girl-governess stood higher than he wished to have it believed, and he thought it extremely unlikely that his younger brother, who was still at the stage of being alternately boisterous and shy with women, would even risk a meeting with Miss Lane. But Harry, nerved by the danger of losing Fire King, had strung himself up to do great things. Fate favored him. It was Saturday; and on that day the vicar’s children always had a half holiday, and their governess was free to spend the afternoon as she liked. When it was fine she generally used her liberty to enjoy her one chance in the week of a walk by herself, and with a book--some solidly instructive book in her hand, just to justify her ramble to herself and relieve her conscience of the reproach of “wasting her time.” So on this Saturday afternoon she had strolled out with a sketch-book and a small camp-stool, and, after wandering through the fields alongside the hedges, watching the young rabbits playing about their holes, gathering a few late primroses, singing to herself all the while very happily, she opened her camp-stool in the corner of a field where there was a pond half surrounded by trees, seated herself, and began to draw. On the other side of the pond, divided from it by a stretch of uneven grass-covered ground, ran a private road, and beyond that was a thick plantation from which, unknown to her, Harry had for some time been watching the governess; and further along the road were some stables and outbuildings, in the shelter of which his brother George had been for some time watching Harry. Miss Lane set to work with the dry enthusiasm of the conscientious amateur, and was soon too much absorbed in calculating distances and making little dots on the paper with her pencil to notice Harry, until, by making a long circuit through the plantation, across the road and along the edge of the field she was in, he came through the long grass to her side. Filled with the guilty consciousness of the enterprise he had in hand, he was half sheepish, half bold, and Miss Lane’s greeting, which was a rather cold little bow and a complete ignoring of his proffered hand, did not help him to recover his self-possession.