"I told them to----" again he stopped and laughed; "well, Patricia, I told them such was the time-honoured custom of my country and regretted my inability to consider their request." "I expect they only get into mischief on Sunday." Caesar flung out this with assumed contempt, but it brought no quick retort. Christopher answered slowly, with his eyes on the fire. "We plan excursions for them when there is anything to see or amusements of some kind. They are like children. If they are not amused they must needs make mischief." His voice was rather grave and Aymer knew there must have been difficulties here of which he did not mean to speak openly. "It is deplorable if our Roadmaker is going about destroying other people's comfortable paths. Don't you agree with me, Patricia?" She flushed up quickly, grasping his meaning at once. "Not if their paths encroach on weaker people's rights. I think it's just what is wanted." Then because Caesar laughed, she realised he was only drawing her, and flung him an appealing glance. "But we mustn't encourage him openly, Patricia, or he'll leave us no old tracks at all." "I'm only the humble instrument of a company," protested Christopher. "I merely carry out the regulations of my superiors." "Who are entirely at your mercy, you should add." Christopher disdained to reply to so obvious a fallacy. Presently, when he had gone to fetch some drawings to show them, Caesar said quizzically. "Has he obliterated any of your pet footpaths, Patricia?" She shook her head. "The Company has great confidence in him," he announced gravely. She looked straight at him. There was a kind intelligence in his eyes, and he held out his hand to her. "Present company not excepted. But we must not spoil him, Patricia." And she understood that her secret was Aymer's and it lent her a sense of security and rest to know it, so that when she went to bed she reproached herself for her former childish moods. "I should be glad his strength of purpose and commonsense are so great," she told herself, forgetting love and commonsense were ever ill neighbours. "I am never going to marry, and it would be difficult to say no to him. To-night was just one of the best of times that can be for us." That unwise thought aroused the dull throbbing ache in her heart again and the reasonable salve she offered it had no effect. She slept with it, woke with it, and knew it for the close companion of many days. But Christopher's last thought was, "I am not going to do without her any longer, if I am to meet her any more in this way. I should have read her soul again to-night if I had not remembered in time." Aymer Aston lay awake wondering what was the matter between the two that they did not guess their palpable secret. He was the richer for another day's respite and every day was a tide carrying him to the shore of safety. CHAPTER XXVIII