He was at Bournemouth by the first train that would carry him there, and it was still early when he went roaming out towards Branksome and the borderland of Dorset. To walk suited better with his impatience than to be driven by a possibly stupid flyman, and to have the fly pulled up every five minutes for the stupid flyman to interrogate a--probably--more stupid pedestrian, who would inevitably prove "a stranger in those parts," as if the inhabitants never walked abroad. No, he would find Rosenkrantz, Mrs. Tolmash's villa, for himself. He had been told it was near Branksome Chine. Swift of foot and keen of apprehension, he succeeded in less time than any flyman would have done. Yes, this was the villa--red-brick, gabled, curtained with virginia creeper from chimneys downwards; virginia creeper not yet touched by autumn's ruddy fingers; and with roses enough climbing over the verandah and surrounding the windows to justify the name which fancy had given. He opened the light iron gate and went into the garden; a somewhat spacious garden. She was there, perhaps. At any rate, he would explore before confronting servant, drawing-room, and unknown lady of the house. The garden was so pretty, and the morning was so fine, that, if within the precincts, surely she would be in the garden. He went boldly round the house by a shrubberied walk, and saw a fine lawn on a breezy height above the Chine, facing the sunlit sea and the wooded dip that went down to golden sands. The standard rose-trees were blown about in the morning air, dropping a rain of pink and yellow on the smooth short turf. He saw the sea westward--sapphire blue--through an arch of reddest roses, and beyond that archway, close to the edge of the cliff, as it seemed in the perspective, there was a bench with a red and white awning, and sitting under that awning a figure in a white frock, a slender waist, a graceful throat, a small dark head, which he would have known from a thousand girlish heads and throats and waists--for him the girl of girls. He knew that restless foot, lightly tapping the grass as she looked seaward. Was there not weariness of life, rebellion against fate, in that quick movement of the slender foot? Was she not waiting for happiness and for him? He ran to her, sat down by her side, had taken both her hands in his, before she could utter so much as a cry of surprise. "My darling, my darling!" he murmured; "now and for ever my own!" She snatched her hands away and started to her feet indignantly. Anger flashed in the dark eyes and flushed the pale olive cheeks. And then her frown changed to an ironical smile, and she stood looking at him almost contemptuously. "I think you forget, Mr. Wornock, that it is a long time since the Romans ran away with the Sabines." "You mean that I am too impetuous." "I mean that you are too absurd."