He bowed with marked deference to Elizabeth, and then offered a hand to the Squire, which was limply accepted. 'Well, Mannering, very glad to see you. Like every one else, you seem to be selling your woods.' 'Under threat of being shot if I don't!' said the Squire grimly. 'What? They're commandeered?' 'The Government spies are all about. I preferred to anticipate them. Well, what about your ploughed-up grass-lands, Chicksands? I hear they are full of wire-worms, and the crops a very poor show.' 'Ah, it was an enemy said that,' laughed Sir Henry, submitting with a good grace to some more remarks of the same kind, and escaping from them as soon as he could. 'I heard of your haul of ash,' he said. 'A man in the Air Board told me. Magnificent!' 'You may thank her.' The Squire indicated his secretary. 'I knew nothing about it.' 'And you're still hunting?' Sir Henry turned to Elizabeth. 'May I join your walk if you're going through the woods?' Captain Dell was introduced. 'You want my opinion on your deal? Well, I'm an old forester, and I'll give it you with pleasure. I used to shoot here, year after year, with the Squire, in our young days--isn't that so, Mannering? I know this bit of country by heart, and I think I could help you to bag a few more ash.' Elizabeth's blue eyes appealed with all proper deference to the Squire. 'Won't you come?' He shook his head. 'I'm tired of timber. Do what you like. I'll sit here and read till you come back.' Sir Henry's shrug was perceptible, but he held his peace, and the three walked away. The Squire, finding a seat on a fallen tree, took a book out of his pocket and pretended to read it. 'Nobody can be as important as Chicksands looks!' he said to himself angrily. Even the smiling manner which ignored their six months' quarrel had annoyed him hugely. It was a piece of condescension--an impertinence. Oh, of course Chicksands was the popular man, the greatest power in the county, looked up to, and listened to by everybody. The Squire knew very well that he himself was ostracized, even hated; that there had been general chuckling in the neighbourhood over his rough handling by the County Committee, and that it would please a good many people to see all his woods commandeered and 'cut clean.' Six months before, his inborn pugnacity would only have amused itself with the situation. He was a rebel and a litigant by nature. Smooth waters had never attracted him. Yet now--though he would never have admitted it--he was often conscious of a flagging will and a depressed spirit. The loneliness of his life, due entirely to himself, had, during Elizabeth Bremerton's absence, begun sharply to find him out. He had no true fatherly relation with any of his children. Desmond loved him--why, he didn't know. He didn't believe any of the others cared anything at all about him. Why should they?