And when Annot came, with all her strange and flower-like fairness of colour and willowy grace, how fragile, soft, and _petite_ she looked, with her minute little face and wealth of golden hair, her bright inquiring eyes, their expression just then having something of alarm mingled with coyness in them! How could he be angry with her? What was he to say--how to begin? We say there was alarm in her expression, for she saw near Roland's hand his powerful field-glasses, with which he was in the habit of amusing himself in viewing the far stretch of country extending away to the distant hills. He could also view the park, which was much nearer. She knew not _whom_ he might have seen there, and the little colour she had died away. 'What is it, Roland?' she asked; 'you wish to speak with me.' How terrible it is, says someone, to confront direct and apparently frank people! 'To state in precise terms the offences of all those who incur our displeasure would occasion a good deal of humming and hawing, and, it is to be feared, invention on the part of most of us in the course of twelve months. We have wrought ourselves up to the pitch of a very pretty quarrel, and it is dreadfully embarrassing to be called upon to state our grounds for it.' So it was with Roland. He had worked himself up to a point which he failed just then to sustain, while in her manner there was a curious mixture of the caressing and the defiant; but when she tried some of her infantile and clinging ways, Roland became cold and hard in the expression of his mouth and eyes, though she hastened to adjust the sofa-cushion on which his head reclined. 'You wish to speak with me, Maude said,' remarked Annot, in a low voice, while looking down and somewhat nervously adjusting a flower in her girdle. Roland did not reply at once. She eyed him furtively, and then laughed. 'I do not understand your mirth,' said he coldly. 'Nor I your gloom, Roland dear; but then you are far from well.' He sighed, as if deprecating her manner. 'Am I to be scolded, like a naughty child?' she asked. 'You seem to feel that you deserve it.' 'But I won't be scolded--and for what?' 'Acting as you ought not to do.' 'How?' 'Riding to see the hounds throw off, without my knowledge, and escorted only by an old groom, whose place another has taken more than once.' He paused, loth to say more. His proud soul revolted at the idea of being jealous--vulgarly, grotesquely jealous of anyone; yet he eyed her with pain and anger mingled. 'Oh, you refer to Bob Hoyle--poor Bob! Hester knows about him,' said Annot, after a little pause, in which she grew, if possible, paler, and certainly more confused. 'He is not a visitor here--and yet you have been seen with him in the park and lawn.' 'Yes. Can I be less than polite when he escorted me home from the meet--in the dusk, too?' 'And who the deuce is Bob Hoyle?' 'I have mentioned him to Hester,' replied Annot, still evasively.