Herring smiled. ’There is no mystery about me; I am plain John Herring, nothing more. I eat, I grow, I sleep, I talk. Troubles!—no, I have none. Alone!—well, yes, that I am. You and the Countess I find acting in tragedies, but my part hitherto has been in a farce?’ ’And you so little regard your good luck that you offer it to the first girl you meet.’ ’What do you mean?’ ’Only the sprig of white heath,’ said Cicely, laughing. Next day Mirelle left West Wyke in company with John Herring in an open caleche. Cicely parted with her in a friendly manner, but without great cordiality. The coldness and pride of Mirelle repelled her, and she did not like her contemptuous treatment of Herring. Yet—strange mystery that the female heart is—she would have liked it quite as little had Mirelle gratefully accepted his services. She resented also her want of tenderness towards her father. Cicely could not understand it. But then she had been brought up with her father, knew him, respected even his weaknesses, and loved his many virtues. She was unable to understand that a like great love could not grow out of the acquaintanceship of ten days, passed in coaches, steam-packet, and hotels. She judged Mirelle more harshly than justly. That is, she judged her as one woman judges another. As Mirelle was driven away Cicely turned back towards the house, saying, ’She is an icicle; she freezes my blood.’ Herring turned to Mirelle and said, ’How kind, and good, and simple Miss Battishill is.’ ’I have never before seen such red cheeks,’ answered Mirelle. ’Do you think she paints?’ *CHAPTER IX.* *DOLBEARE.* A bright day, with a few fleecy clouds drifting before a west wind. A sky bright as that which overarches a young heart. The prospect as smiling as that which opens before youth. Barriers bathed in sunlight and indistinct in haze. Clouds without threat of rain casting cobalt-blue shadows. The wild range of Dartmoor rose into peaks, with gullies seaming their sides, down which the Taw and the Ockments rushed foaming from their cradles. A glorious scene inviting exploration, an enchanted land calling the traveller to enter its seclusion and dispel its mysteries. Bathed in sunlight, enveloped in that finest haze that pervades the air on the brightest day in the West Country, who would suppose that all he saw was barrenness and naked desolation? ’Do you see that castle rising out of the woods?’ asked Herring, pointing to some ruins of a keep on a hill to the left of the road, after they had passed Okehampton. ’That castle belonged to the Courtneys. There is a story of a certain Lady Howard who lived there in the reign of James I.’ ’I have not heard of him. Was he an English king?’ ’He was king of England. He was the father of the ill-fated Charles I.’ ’I have heard of him. He married a French princess, so he comes into history.’