The horses were brought round to the porch, the ladies put on their gloves, and adjusted themselves in those skimpy lop-sided petticoats which have replaced the flowing drapery of the dark ages when a horsewoman's legs and boots were in somewise a mystery to the outside world. Leonard went out to look at the horses. A strange horse would have interested him even on his death bed, while one ray of consciousness yet remained to recognize the degrees of equine strength and quality. He overhauled the mare which Major Bree had chosen for Christabel a month ago--a magnificent three-quarter bred hunter, full of power. "Do you think she can carry me?" asked Christabel. "She could carry a house. Yes; you ought to be safe upon her. Is that big black brute the Baron's horse?" "Yes." "I thought so--a coarse clumsy beast, all show," muttered Leonard; "like master, like man." He turned away to examine Colonel Blathwayt's hunter, a good looking chestnut, and in that moment the Baron had taken up his ground by Christabel's mare, and was ready to lift her into the saddle. She went up as lightly as a shuttlecock from a battledore, scarcely touching the corduroy shoulder--but Leonard felt angry with the Baron for usurping a function which should have been left for the husband. "Is Betsy Baker in condition?" he asked the head groom, as the party rode away, de Cazalet on Mrs. Tregonell's right hand. "Splendid, sir. She only wants work." "Get her ready as quick as you can. I'll take it out of her." Mr. Tregonell kept his word. Wherever de Cazalet and Christabel rode that day, Christabel's husband went with them. The Baron was a bold, bad rider--reckless of himself, brutal to his horse. Christabel rode superbly, and was superbly mounted. Those hills which seemed murderous to the stranger, were as nothing to her, who had galloped up and down them on her Shetland pony, and had seldom ridden over better ground from the time when Major Bree first took her out with a leading rein. The day was long, and there was plenty of fast going--but these three were always in the front. Yet even the husband's immediate neighbourhood in no wise lessened the Baron's marked attention to the wife, and Leonard rode homeward at dusk sorely troubled in spirit. What did it mean? Could it be that she, whose conduct last year had seemed without reproach; who had borne herself with matronly dignity; with virginal purity towards the lover of her girlhood--the refined and accomplished Angus Hamleigh--could it be that she had allowed herself to be involved in a flirtation with such a tinsel dandy as this de Cazalet? "It would be sheer lunacy," he said to himself. "Perhaps she is carrying on like this to annoy me--punishing me for----"