Constance looked into the angry face. In the book she was carrying, a French volume arrived by post this morning, she had found things which troubled her mind and her temper; she was in no mood for submitting to harsh dictatorship. But those blood-shot eyes and shrivelled lips, the hollow temples and drawn cheeks which told of physical suffering, stilled her irritation. "I will tell them at once, Lady Ogram." Dymchurch and May Tomalin had strayed from the garden into the park. They were sitting on a bench which encircled a great old tree. For some minutes neither had spoken. Dymchurch held in his hand a last year's leaf, brown, crisp, but still perfect in shape; he smiled dreamily, and, as his eyes wandered to the girl's face, said in a soft undertone: "How easily one loses oneself in idle thoughts! I was asking myself where this grew--on which branch, which twig; and it seemed strange to me that by no possibility could anyone discover it." May had not a very high opinion of her companion's intelligence, but it struck her this morning he was duller than usual. She humoured him, replying with her philosophical air: "No, indeed! Yet we try to find out how life began, and what the world means." Dymchurch was pleased. He liked to find her capable of such a reflection. It encouraged the movements of vague tenderness which had begun to justify a purpose formed rather in the mind than in the heart. "Yes! Amusing, isn't it? But you, I think, don't trouble much about such questions." "It seems to me waste of time." She was thinking of Dyce Lashmar, asking herself whether she would meet him, or not, to-morrow morning. Certainly she wished to do so. Lashmar at a distance left her coolly reasonable; she wanted to recover the emotional state of mind which had come about during their stolen interview. With Lord Dymchurch, though his attentions were flattering, she could not for a moment imagine herself touched by romantic feeling. "So it is," he was saying. "To waste time in that way has always been one of my bad habits. But I am going to get rid of it." He seemed on the point of adding more significant words. May heard the sound fail in his throat; saw without looking at him--his sudden embarrassment. When the words came, as surely they would, what was to be her answer? She hoped for inspiration. Why should it be necessary for her to make precise reply? No! She would not. Freedom and the exercise of power were what she wanted. Enough to promise her answer a month, or half a year, hence. If the old lady didn't like it, let her learn patience. Dymchurch sat bending forward. The dry leaf crackled between his fingers; he was crushing it to powder. "Who," he asked, "is the lady Miss Bride was speaking of, in connection with the servant's training-school?" "Mrs. Gallantry. A good, active sort of woman at Hollingford." "That scheme doesn't interest you much?"