She placed that white object very carefully in the folds of her dress beneath the veil which covered her down to the waist; and then to my great disappointment she was gone, seeming rather to float on the air than to walk with a definite stride, as our ladies make their way. But the quivering points of some pendulous leafage showed that a bodily form had passed there. I was left in a conflict of wonder, and doubt, and intense desire to know more, mingled with some self-reproach--though the worst of that came afterwards--and a hollow feeling in my heart as if I should never fill it with myself again. Something told me that the proper course, and the most manly and business-like, was to jump on my horse and make him climb the hill anew, and take the high road, and get home at full speed, and never say a word about what I had seen, nor even think about it, if it could be helped. But I assure you (and I hope again that allowance will be made for me, as a young man not much accustomed to the world, and hitherto heedless of feminine charms) that I found it impossible to do the right thing now. Instead of a lofty and resolute withdrawal, in I went for more of that, of which I had taken too much already. I stuck Old Joe's bit into the hungry leather of his most voracious mouth, and came down on his back with a ponderous swing, and girded him with a hard grip of his belly, to show me some more of what he had scared away. Much against his liking--for if ever a horse was totally destitute of romance, here he was and no mistake--with a grunt of remonstrance he plodded into the pebbly ford at the bottom of the hill. But when we struck into the silence of the meadow, what was I the wiser? Lo, the dusk was settling down in the most indifferent manner, the sunset flush was fading into a faint and chill neutrality, the trees had no shadow, and, worst of all, no sign or even memory of any sweet passage among them. Only on the left hand some hundred yards away was a black door set in an old grey wall, which curved along leisurely as far as I could see, and offered no other entrance. "I am not the sort of fellow to put up with this," I exclaimed to myself impatiently; and yet there was no way to help it just now. And if it came to reason, what business had I there? Still the whole of this land had been ours not more than a century ago, and a true Briton feels that he has his rights, however long he may have lost them. But it is not in his nature to lose sight of reason, though I am not quite so certain how that was with me, as I wandered home slowly along forgotten ways, and knew that my life was changed thenceforth. CHAPTER II THE FAMILY