"Billy’s late!" said his mother nervously as she poked the study fire. "I am always worried when he is out without Jackson; he is so reckless, and Jackson came home just before lunch, you know." Billy’s father pushed his papers away from him, and came and stood beside her at the fire. "There he is!" he said, "there’s the drive gate." "That’s a horse; besides, Billy always goes straight to the yard—Oh, can he be hurt? and some one has come to tell us. Go down quick and see." On no occasion did Billy ever go hunting but his mother pictured every possible mishap. Had the child ever realised her agony of apprehension he would never have gone; but she loved him too well to interfere with his pleasures. "He’s such a manly little fellow," she would say when he came safely back, forgetting her dread in her pride of him—until next hunting day. She followed her husband into the fire-lit hall. The door stood open. The well-loved little figure was silhouetted against the gloom, and the kind young voice was persuading some one to come in. "Do come and have some tea," she heard him say; then, as he saw his mother: "It’s the dark lady, dear; she has been so kind to me. Has Dalgo come home?" The mother went out on to the steps beside her husband. The unknown lady had already turned her horse preparatory to departure, but waited just to say in short, jerky sentences: "Your little boy was thrown, and the pony ran away. I thought it best to bring him home without looking for the pony. He fell with some force against a tree, but I don’t think——!" "Won’t you come in?" asked Billy’s mother, going down into the rain beside her guest. A great many considerations flashed into her mind, but—"and let me thank you." The soft voice was so like Billy’s. For a moment the Baroness wavered. She looked somewhat wistfully into the hall where the ruddy firelight danced on the old oak furniture, but she gave a little wriggle on her saddle and said lightly and in the voice that jarred, "Thanks! but I’m far too wet. I must go home and change. The boy is wet. I hope the pony will turn up all right," and with that she rode out of the drive. Billy spent some days in bed with concussion of the brain. He talked constantly of his "dark lady" to the bewilderment of his mother, who had no idea how firmly he was imbued with the notion that _his_ dark lady was _the_ dark lady—"of the sonnets," as he always piously concluded. As for the lady—when Billy’s father went down to the "Moonstone" that very evening in the pouring rain, to thank her for her kindness to his little son, she was declared to be engaged and would see no one.