"Perhaps she isn't up yet! I--I think I'll take the risk." Lynborough assisted her into the carriage. "I hope we shall meet again," he said, with no small _empressement_. "I'm afraid not," answered Miss Gilletson dolefully. "You see, Helena----" "Yes, yes; but ladies have their moods. Anyhow you won't think too hardly of me, will you? I'm not altogether an ogre." There was a pretty faint blush on Miss Gilletson's cheek as she gave him her hand. "An ogre! No, dear Lord Lynborough," she murmured. "A wedge!" said Lynborough, as he watched her drive away. He was triumphant with what he had achieved--he was full of hope for what he had planned. If he reckoned right, the loyalty of the ladies at Nab Grange to the mistress thereof was tottering, if it had not fallen. His relations with the men awaited the result of the cricket match. Yet neither his triumph nor his hope could in the nature of the case exist without an intermixture of remorse. He hurt--or tried to hurt--what he would please--and hoped to please. His mood was mixed, and his smile not altogether mirthful as he stood looking at the fast-receding carriage. Then suddenly, for the first time, he saw his enemy. Distantly--afar off! Yet without a doubt it was she. As he turned and cast his eyes over the forbidden path--the path whose seclusion he had violated, bold in his right--a white figure came to the sunk fence and stood there, looking not toward where he stood, but up to his castle on the hill. Lynborough edged near to the barricaded gate--a new padlock and new _chevaux-de-frise_ of prickly branches guarded it. The latter, high as his head, screened him completely; he peered through the interstices in absolute security. The white figure stood on the little bridge which led over the sunk fence into the meadow. He could see neither feature nor color; only the slender shape caught and chained his eye. Tall she was, and slender, as his mocking forecast had prophesied. More than that he could not see. Well, he did see one more thing. This beautiful shape, after a few minutes of what must be presumed to be meditation, raised its arm and shook its fist with decision at Scarsmoor Castle; then it turned and walked straight back to the Grange. There was no sort of possibility of mistaking the nature or the meaning of the gesture. It had the result of stifling Lynborough's softer mood, of reviving his pugnacity. "She must do more than that, if she's to win!" said he. _Chapter Eight_ THE MARCHESA MOVES After her demonstration against Scarsmoor Castle, the Marchesa went in to lunch. But there were objects of her wrath nearer home also. She received Norah's salute--they had not met before, that morning--with icy coldness. "I'm better, thank you," she said, "but you must be feeling tired--having been up so very early in the morning! And you--Violet--have you been over to Scarsmoor again?"