“Great Heaven!” he murmured, with a bitter smile. “Bertie must be right. I must be going mad! Stark, staring, raving mad!” and he thrust his hands into his pockets, and leaned against the door with his head drooping despondently upon his breast. Suddenly in the silence of the gloaming--it was almost dark in the tree-shaded Dell--a sound smote upon his ears, and caused him to look up quickly. It was the sound of a runaway horse, and no man who has heard it once can ever mistake it. It was coming down the road in the direction of the cottage. He ran down the narrow, flower-lined path, and vaulted over the gate just as a small pony, with a light cart behind it, came tearing up. Faradeane made a spring for the pony’s head, and caught the reins. Even small ponies, when they are on the bolt, are tough customers to tackle; and Faradeane was thrown to the ground. When he got to his feet again after a sharp tussle, and still holding to the reins with a grip of iron, he was shocked and horrified to see a slim, girlish figure lying half in and half out of the cart. CHAPTER IV. A WOMAN-HATER. Dinner was over at the Grange, and Miss Amelia and Olivia were in the drawing-room waiting for the appearance of the squire, who, for form’s sake, lingered behind for a quarter of an hour in the dining-room to sip a glass of the famous Vanley port. It was Miss Amelia’s custom every evening during this quarter of an hour to enjoy a peaceful snooze in an armchair carefully placed by the footman out of the light of the lamps, from which she awoke on the appearance of her brother to declare with a start that really in another moment she should have been asleep. Olivia was sitting as usual with a book in her hand; but this evening the volume remained open at the same page, and instead of reading she was thinking of her strange meeting with the “mysterious stranger” of The Dell. It need scarcely be said that Olivia was not sentimental. She was the last girl in the world to invest any one with a romantic halo or to “get up a sentiment” over any man; but try as she would she could not dismiss the remembrance of the handsome face with its sad eyes, and the grave voice with its almost tragic tones, from her mind, and it was with a feeling of actual relief from her own too persistent dwelling upon him that she heard the door open, and, looking up, saw her father enter. Miss Amelia heard it too, and jerked herself upright with the usual “Is that you, Edwin? Another moment,” etc. Olivia, looking at her father, saw that instead of the smile of amused incredulity with which he usually received Miss Amelia’s assertion, his face wore an anxious and thoughtful expression, and as he came up to her to get his cup of coffee, she said in a low voice: “Is anything the matter, papa?” “Anything the matter?” he repeated, with a little start. “No. What should be that matter?” “I don’t know,” said Olivia, “but I thought you looked rather worried, dear.”