Delia went on, smarting and bewildered. How clear it was that she was no longer trusted--no longer in the inner circle--and that Gertrude herself had given the cue! The silent and stubborn Marion Andrews was of a very different type from the three excitable or helpless women gathered in Miss Toogood's parlour. She had ability, passion, and the power to hold her tongue. Her connection with Gertrude Marvell had begun, in London, at the "Daughters" office, as Delia now knew, long before her own appearance at Maumsey. When Gertrude came to the Abbey, she and this strange, determined woman were already well acquainted, though Delia herself had not been aware of it till quite lately. "I have been a child in their hands!--they have _never_ trusted me!" Heart and vanity were equally wounded. As she neared the Maumsey gate, suddenly a sound--a voice--a tall figure in the twilight. "Ah, there you are!" said Winnington. "Lady Tonbridge sent me to look for you." "Aren't you back very early?" Delia attempted her usual voice. But the man who joined her at once detected the note of effort, of tired pre-occupation. "Yes--our business collapsed. Our clerk's too good--leaves us nothing to do. So I've been having a talk with Lady Tonbridge." Delia was startled; not by the words, but by the manner of them. While she seemed to Winnington to be thinking of something other than the moment--the actual moment, her impression was the precise opposite, as of a sharp, intense consciousness of the moment in him, which presently communicated its own emotion to her. They walked up the drive together. "At last I have got a horse for you," said Winnington, after a pause. "Shall I bring it to-morrow? Weston is going on so well to-night, France tells me, that he may be able to say 'out of danger' to-morrow. If so, let me take you far afield, into the Forest. We might have a jolly run." Delia hesitated. It was very good of him. But she was out of practice. She hadn't ridden for a long time. Winnington laughed aloud. He told--deliberately--a tale of a young lady on a black mare, whom no one else could ride--of a Valkyrie--a Brunhilde--who had exchanged a Tyrolese hotel for a forest lodge, and ranged the wide world alone-- "Oh!"--cried Delia, "where did you hear that?" He described the talk of the little Swedish lady, and that evening on the heights when he had first heard her name. "Next day came the lawyers' letter--and yours--both in a bundle." "You'll agree--I did all I could--to put you off!" "So I understood--at once. You never beat about the bush."