He walked his horse up the hill, looking back once or twice to the gate where she stood watching him till a turn of the lane hid him from her sight. When that happened, he sighed in luxurious contentment, and took a cigarette from his case. To her the afternoon had been a wonder-working revelation; to him it seemed an extremely delightful episode. CHAPTER III THE WORLDLY MIND For a girl of ardent temper and vivid imagination, strung to her highest pitch by a wonderful fairy ride and the still strange embrace of her lover, it may fairly be reckoned a trial to listen to a detailed comparison of the hero of her fancy with another individual--who has been sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude for attempted murder! Concede circumstances extenuating the crime as amply as you please (and My Lord in scarlet on the Bench had not encouraged the jury to concede any), the comparison is one that gives small pleasure, unless such as lies in an opportunity for the exercise of Christian patience. This particular virtue Jeremy Chiddingfold suspected of priestly origin; neither was it the strongest point in his sister's spiritual panoply. He regarded Sibylla's ill-repressed irritation and irrepressible fidgeting with a smile of malicious humour. "You might almost as well come up to Imason's," he whispered. "She can't go on much longer!" moaned Sibylla. But she could. For long years starved of fruition, her love revelled luxuriantly in retrospect and tenderly in prospect; and she was always good at going on, and at going on along the same lines. Mrs. Mumple's loving auditors had heard the tale of Luke's virtues many a time during the period of his absence (that was the term euphemistically employed). The ashes of their interest suddenly flickered up at the hint of a qualification which Mrs. Mumple unexpectedly introduced. "He wasn't the husband for every woman," she said thoughtfully. "Thank heaven!" muttered Jeremy, glad to escape the superhuman. "Eh, Jeremy?" She revolved slowly and ponderously towards him. "Thank heaven he got the right sort, Mumples." "He did," said Mrs. Mumple emphatically; "and he knew it--and he'll know it again when he comes back, and that's only three years now." A reference to this date was always the signal for a kiss from Sibylla. She rendered the tribute and returned to her chair, sighing desperately. But it was some relief that Mrs. Mumple had finished her parallel, with its list of ideal virtues, and now left Grantley out of the question. "Why wasn't he the husband for every woman, Mumples?" inquired Jeremy as he lit his pipe. "They're all just alike, you know." "You wait, Jeremy!" "Bosh!" ejaculated Jeremy curtly. "He liked them good-looking, to start with," she went on; "and I was good-looking." Jeremy had heard this so often that he no longer felt tempted to smile. "But there was more than that. I had tact." "Oh, come now, Mumples! You had tact? You? I'm--well, I'm----"