Meanwhile the guests of the gentler sex were drinking tea in the drawing-room or flirting with some of the young fellows upon the terrace. Bartley Bradstone moved from one group to the other restlessly, for a few minutes, then, after glancing at his watch for the third or fourth time in a quarter of an hour, he went up to the squire. “I’ll just run over to The Maples,” he said, with eyes that carefully avoided the squire’s. “I--I--there are one or two things I have forgotten. It will not take me long.” “Let me send for them,” said the squire, going toward the bell. “It is a pity you should trouble.” “No, no,” he replied quickly. “I--shall have to go. You--you need not tell Olivia. I shall be back long before she is down.” “Very well,” said the squire. “Take any carriage you can find.” “Take mine, pray,” Lord Carfield called after him. The squire sighed as, with a hurried step, his son-in-law left the room. “It has been a trying day for Bradstone,” he said. “Yes, it is always so, when the bridegroom is really in love with the bride,” said Lord Carfield. The squire pressed his hand. “Thank you for that, Carfield,” he murmured, and his voice trembled with emotion. “Yes, I know that he loves her, and that--and that is everything.” “Is everything,” echoed the earl, encouragingly. Bartley Bradstone almost ran down the terrace steps, and stopped before one of the long line of carriages which stood in the drive; then, as if he had changed his mind, he glanced at his watch and hurried down the avenue. After going a hundred yards or so he pulled up and looked round. Not a soul was in sight; almost the whole village was feasting in the _marquee_, from which shouts and laughter floated toward him, and, climbing the low park railing, he, running now, made his way into the wood. The clock struck the hour; three minutes afterward he emerged from among the trees into the open space where he had arranged to meet Bella. She was not there. While yet breathless he flung himself on to the trunk of the tree, and, taking off his hat, mopped his wet forehead. Five, ten minutes passed; he got up and paced to and fro with his watch in his hand, cursing and chafing. Then he heard a laugh, the laugh that had made him writhe yesterday, and she stood before him. For a minute she stood and looked at him with a mocking smile that scarcely harmonized with a certain angry light in her black eyes, and a hard tightening of her lips. “Well,” she said, eying him up and down. “So you were too afraid to stop away, were you? By Heaven! you were right. Do you know what I would have done if you hadn’t come?” “Well, I’m here, am I not?” he exclaimed, timidly. “What are you going to do, Bella? Don’t--don’t be too hard upon me----” and he moistened his lips.