Nab Grange was in the market. Ancestrally a possession of the Caverlys (for centuries a noble but unennobled family in those parts), it had served for the family’s dower house, till a bad race-meeting had induced the squire of the day to sell it to a Mr Cross of Leeds. The Crosses held it for seventy years. Then the executors of the last Cross sold it to the Marchesa. This final transaction happened a year before Lynborough came home. The “Beach Path” had, as above recorded, been closed only for two days. The path was not just now in the Marchesa’s thoughts. Nothing very definite was. Rather, as her eyes ranged from moor to sea, from the splendid uniformity of the unclouded sky to the ravishing variety of many-tinted earth, from the green of the Grange meadows (the one spot of rich emerald on the near coastline, owing its hues to Sandy Nab’s kindly shelter) to the grey mass of Scarsmoor Castle--there was in her heart that great mixture of content and longing that youth and--(what put bluntly amounts to)--a fine day are apt to raise. And youth allied with beauty becomes self-assertive, a claimant against the world, a plaintiff against facts before High Heaven’s tribunal. The Marchesa was infinitely delighted with Nab Grange--graciously content with Nature--not ill-pleased with herself--but, in fine, somewhat discontented with her company. That was herself? Not precisely, though, at the moment, objectively. She was wondering whether her house party was all that her youth and her beauty--to say nothing of her past endurance of the Marchesa--entitled her to claim and to enjoy. Then suddenly across her vision, cutting the skyline, seeming to divide for a moment heaven above from earth beneath, passed a tall meagre figure, and a head of lines clean as if etched by a master’s needle. The profile stood as carved in fine ivory; glints of colour flashed from hair and beard. The man softly sang a love song as he walked--but he never looked towards the Marchesa. She sat up suddenly. “Could that be Lord Lynborough?” she thought--and smiled. CHAPTER III OF LAW AND NATURAL RIGHTS Lynborough sat on the terrace which ran along the front of the Castle and looked down, over Nab Grange, to the sea. With him were Leonard Stabb and Roger Wilbraham. The latter was a rather short, slight man of dark complexion; although a light weight he was very wiry and a fine boxer. His intellectual gifts corresponded well with his physical equipment; an acute ready mind was apt to deal with everyday problems and pressing necessities; it had little turn either for speculation or for fancy. He had dreams neither about the past, like Stabb, nor about present things, like Lynborough. His was, in a word, the practical spirit, and Lynborough could not have chosen a better right-hand man. They were all smoking; a silence had rested long over the party. At last Lynborough spoke.