‘You may be aware that from the Black Bank Ford to Thorsgarth is a good five miles?’ ‘It is every bit of it. I admit it freely.’ ‘Perhaps you can also comprehend that we did not ride all that distance in unbroken silence?’ ‘Rather stupid of you both, if you did, I should say.’ ‘Yes. Well, we had a good deal of conversation.’ ‘Ah! Was it of an agreeable nature?’ ‘It was interesting, at any rate.’ ‘That was well. I am yearning to hear more. What did you talk about?’ ‘Scenery, amongst other things.’ ‘Yes? Has she an eye for the picturesque?’ ‘A taste for it, I should say, seeing the kind of expedition she had undertaken, and how she came to be where I found her.’ ‘To be sure! I had forgotten that. Well?’ Michael paused, and Roger looked at him. He had spoken flippantly, but he had not been altogether delighted to find how full his friend was of the afternoon’s adventure. ‘She talked about her brother,’ said Michael, slowly. ‘To you! Well——’ ‘Wait a bit! It came on quite accidentally. The whole thing was accidental, and I don’t know that I am not very sorry to have got let in for it at all. It was apropos of Otho’s having gone away from home. She told me he had gone to Friarsdale, and asked me where, exactly, it was. My reply enlightened her considerably. Would you believe that she was perfectly ignorant that he possessed that place in Friarsdale? She was in a great state about it when she gathered, from my casual remark, that he had horses over there.’ ‘No wonder, if she has any idea of the value of money, or any conception of the way in which it flies in Friarsdale.’ ‘Bah! She knows nothing about that, of course. She had an idea that everything of that kind must be low. I tried to make things straight, but she had got thinking, and putting two and two together as quick-witted women will; and before I had time to take my breath, almost, she had hit upon the exact truth, turned upon me, and demanded to know if Otho were a gambler.’ ‘How intensely disagreeable for you!’ ‘Humph! Not very pleasant for her, when I had to say yes to her question. She did not speak for an immense time. It seemed an eternity to me. I began to wish myself well out of it.’ ‘Well, you are well out of it now,’ said Roger, looking at him from under his bushy brows. But he spoke with some uncertainty. ‘No, I’m not, unless I break a promise I made her.’ Roger was too entirely in sympathy with Michael and his every mood to express surprise, but, well though he knew his friend, he felt it. Michael must, he understood at once, have been very much moved, to have made promises to Eleanor Askam. ‘What sort of a promise was that, Michael?’ he asked, quietly. ‘When we parted at her door, I lifted her from her horse, and she looked so utterly sad and heartbroken, that I could hardly bear to see her. She asked me to call upon her to-morrow afternoon, as she had something to say to me, and I—said I would.’