With Maud Devereux I made but little progress--in fact I feared sometimes that she even disliked me. She was always the same--cold, unbending, and apparently proud. It seemed impossible to win even a smile from her, and the more friendly Lady Olive and I became the more she seemed to stand aloof. Once or twice, when I had found myself riding by her side, or alone with her for a minute, I had fancied that her manner was changing a little. But before I could be sure of it, Lady Olive would bear down upon us and challenge me to a race, or make some mocking speech. Why should it matter to me? I could not tell; yet always at such times I knew that I wished Lady Olive a little further away. Cold and disdainful though she was, a minute with her was more to me than hours with Lady Olive. And yet she was the daughter of the man whom I hated more than any living thing, and on whom I had sworn to be revenged should I fail in the great object of my life. One evening, when, tired and dusty and stiff, after many hours' riding, I walked into Marian's little drawing-room to beg for a cup of tea before changing my things, I had a great surprise. Instead of Lady Olive, Maud Devereux was leaning back in an easy chair opposite my sister. Maud, with the proud wearied look gone from her cold blue eyes, and actually laughing a soft, pleasant laugh at one of my sister's queer speeches. I stepped forward eagerly, and there was actually a shade of something very like embarrassment in her face as she leaned forward and held out her hand. "You are surprised to see me, Mr. Arbuthnot," she said; "I wanted Olive, and thought this the most likely place to find her." "We haven't seen her to-day, have we, Hugh?" Marian remarked. I assented silently, and spoke of something else. I did not want to talk about Lady Olive just then. For more than half-an-hour we sat there sipping our tea, and chatting about the new schools which Sir Francis was building in the village, the weather, and the close approach of cub-hunting. I could scarcely believe that it was indeed Maud Devereux who sat there in my easy chair, looking so thoroughly at home and talking so pleasantly. As a rule, the only words I had been able to win from her were cold monosyllables, and the only looks half-impatient, half-contemptuous ones. At last she rose to go, and I walked with her to the gate. It was almost dusk, and I felt that under the circumstances I might offer to walk up to the house with her. But I felt absolutely timid about proposing what with Lady Olive would have been a matter of course. I did propose it, however, and was not a little disappointed at the passive indifference with which my escort was accepted. But what I should have resented from Lady Olive I accepted humbly from her.