Lady Maud smiled behind the fan with which she screened her face from the fire. "He is there now, I expect. He went dune-hunting in the south this morning, and was to stop there for the night. Thought he might be late; besides, he must consult the encyclopædia." Will Lockhart frowned. "This has made us drift from the point. Your husband, does he like the place?" "Apparently. And the servants are satisfied too, which is a great gain. They get all their work done for them by the natives. It is an immense relief to shift one's responsibilities to other folks' shoulders, isn't it?" He looked at her sharply. "There _is_ something the matter. Is it only other people's love-affairs? And what, for instance, of that handsome boy downstairs who does Sir Walter Raleigh's cloak for your Majesty's feet all day long?" Lady Maud leant forward eagerly, her whole face alight. "You mean Rick. Do you remember once, when you were very angry with me, saying I was enough to ruin any man in a week? It wasn't true, Big Bear. I couldn't spoil Rick Halmar." "Have you tried and failed?" he asked cynically. She shook her head and a soft half-smiling, half-tearful look came to her pretty eyes. "You don't know him, and I can't explain. Yet I tell you that I couldn't spoil one of that dear lad's happy days unless--" she broke off suddenly, raising her eyes to the image on the mantelshelf. "He carved that devil up there," she went on with the smile gaining on the tears. "The professor said it was a savage conception of fate, but it isn't. It is Rick Halmar's conception of my fate, and that--well, that hasn't much of the devil in it. Come! it is time I was returning to my duties as hostess." "Time for me to be going also," he replied, looking at his watch. "I have seven miles before me." "Not if you make use of the Eval ferryboat." She looked at him mischievously. "I do not intend to make use of it, even to oblige you, Lady Maud. I might meet the professor, and then there would be a petty-assault case." "Of course! How tiresome you are! I counted on your being here a week at least, and people can unmake ever so many quarrels in seven days." "Or make them. But the elements are too strong for you, Lady Maud. I told you so." Rick Halmar came up as, still smiling over the joke, they entered the drawing-room. "I'm so glad. I was afraid you might not come before I left, and I must go soon." "Then you can pilot Mr. Lockhart a little way. He has to walk over to Carbost Bay." "A good bit of the way, you mean," replied Rick, turning his bright face towards Will Lockhart's. "Our ferry is far the shortest; in fact, it's the only road, for the upper-end bridge gave way in the flood last night and the stream isn't fordable yet!" Lady Maud's eyebrows went up archly. "What a nuisance the elements are at times; aren't they, Mr. Lockhart?"