“Dick,” quoth the younger man, sadly, “that would be ungenerous of me. It was my sword that did the deed.” “True, sir, true.” “You will remain on guard this afternoon? Bess is in the blue parlor beyond the dining-room. You will find my pistols in the library.” Wilson smiled as though amused at the responsibility that was thrust upon him. “I will play the Cerberus, sir,” he said. “Go to Rookhurst, and may you find Mr. Hardacre alive.” Jeffray saw Bess before he left the house, and explained the nature of his purpose to her. She was a little loath for him to go, having learned to feel already a sweet and strange security in his presence. He kissed her, and smiled, not sorry in his heart that even the small leave-takings of love could bring regret into the woman’s eyes. She went with him to the terrace, and parted from him with a pressure of the hand. Jeffray recovered much of his fervor as he swung through Rodenham and on towards Rookhurst. The west wind set the woods a-whimper, the foxgloves waving above the bracken. Dog-roses were threading the hedge-rows, delicate in coloring as pink sea-shells. Honeysuckle trailed from the oak-saplings and the hazels, and the fields were green with the rising corn. In the meadows the hay rippled, sinuous as the sea under the passing wind, and over the dense green of the summer woods sunlight and cloud shadows raced and played. It was about four o’clock when Jeffray saw the little town of Rookhurst straggling red-roofed down the slope of a hill. A gray tower with a white-shingled spire flashed up in the sunlight above the gables, chimneys, and dormer-windows. There were orchards lying about the town, and every house seemed overrun with roses. Meadows, still golden with buttercups, and afire with sorrel and red clover, ran down to the stream that flickered on towards the sea. Jeffray rode down King Street into the market-place, his horse’s hoofs clattering on the round cobbles, quaint casements opening through clematis and roses on either hand. An Old World quiet, a calm air of contented indolence seemed to hang over the red roofs of the little town. The good people of Rookhurst took life as though it was an endless June. The quiet shops were cursed with no surfeit of customers, and the dogs slept on the sunny side of the footway. The very clock in the church-tower smote the quarters as though Time were no demon to be obeyed.