He turned and looked at the Wye and its tree-shaded banks. Then he faced Cynthia again, and his hands rested on the barrier that divided them. For one mad instant he thought of vaulting it, and Cynthia read his thought; she drew back in a panic. A less infatuated wooer than Medenham might have noted that she seemed to fear interruption more than any too impulsive action on his part. "I sent for you to tell you that Mrs. Devar is ill," she said in a flurry of words. "I am afraid she suffered more from the fright than I imagined last night. Anyhow, she has asked me to let her remain here to-day. You won't mind, I am sure, though it must be a bother not to have your luggage. Can't you run in to Hereford and get it? I am quite content to rest in this pretty place and write letters." "I do honestly believe that Mrs. Devar is more frightened than ill," he said. "Oh, she isn't making a fuss about it. Indeed, she was willing to go to Hereford this afternoon if I particularly wanted to attend service at the cathedral. I did, as a matter of fact, but it would be real mean to insist on it after scaring the poor thing into a nervous headache." "The affair arranges itself admirably," he said. "At most cathedrals there is an anthem, followed by a sermon by some eminent preacher, about three o'clock. Write your letters this morning, or, better still, climb to the top of the Yat and see the glorious view from the top. Come back for lunch at one, and----" "I'll see what Mrs. Devar thinks of it," broke in Cynthia, whose cheeks were borrowing tints from the red roses and the white with astonishing fluctuations of color. She ran off, more like Io, the sylph, than ever, and Medenham stood there in a brown study. "This sort of thing can't go on," he argued with himself. "At any minute now I shall be taking her in my arms and kissing her, and that will not be fair to Cynthia, who is proud and queenly, and who will strive against the dictates of her own heart because it is not seemly that she should wed her father's paid servant. So I must tell her, to-day--perhaps during the run home from Hereford, perhaps to-night. But, dash it all! that will break up our tour. One ought to consider the world we live in; Cynthia will be one of its leaders, and it will never do to have people saying that Viscount Medenham became engaged to Cynthia Vanrenen while acting as the lady's chauffeur during a thousand-mile run through the West of England and Wales. Now, what _am_ I to do?" The answer came from a bedroom window that overlooked the veranda. "Mr. Fitzroy!" He knew as he looked up that Cynthia dared not face him again, for her voice was too exquisitely subtle in its modulations not to betray its owner's disappointment before she uttered another word.