I changed the conversation. After all I was a fool to have blundered into it. We talked of other and lighter things. I exerted myself to shake off the depression against which I had been struggling all the morning. By degrees I think we both forgot some part of our troubles. We walked home across the sandhills, climbing gradually higher and higher, until we reached the cliffs. On all sides of us the coming change in the seasons seemed to be vigorously asserting itself. The plovers were crying over the freshly-turned ploughed fields, a whole world of wild birds and insects seemed to have imparted a sense of movement and life to what only a few days ago had been a land of desolation, a country silent and winterbound. Colour was asserting itself in all manner of places--in the green of the sprouting grass, the shimmer of the sun upon the sea-stained sands, in the silvery blue of the Braster creeks. Lady Angela drew a long breath of content as we paused for a moment at the summit of the cliffs. "And you wonder," she murmured, "that I left London for this!" "Yes, I still wonder," I answered. "The beauties of this place are for the lonely--I mean the lonely in disposition. For you life in the busy places should just be opening all her fascinations. It is only when one is disappointed in the more human life that one comes back to Nature." "Perhaps then," she said, a little vaguely, "I too must be suffering from disappointments. I have never realized--" We had taken the last turn. My cottage was in sight. To my surprise a man was standing there as though waiting. He turned round as we approached. His face was very pale, and the back of his head was bandaged. He carried his arm, too, in a sling. It was Colonel Mostyn Ray! CHAPTER XXII MISS MOYAT MAKES A SCENE Ray was smoking his customary enormous pipe, which he deliberately emptied as Lady Angela and I approached. The sight of him and the significance of his wounds reduced me to a state of astonishment which could find no outlet in words. I simply stood and stared at him. Lady Angela, however, after her first exclamation of surprise, went up and greeted him. "Why, my dear Mostyn," she exclaimed, "wherever have you sprung from, and what have you been doing to yourself?" "I came from London--newspaper train," he answered. "And your head and arm?" "Thrown out of a hansom last night," he said grimly. We were all silent for a moment. So far as I was concerned, speech was altogether beyond me. Lady Angela, too, seemed to find something disconcerting in Ray's searching gaze. "My welcome," he remarked quietly, "does not seem to be overpowering." Lady Angela laughed, but there was a note of unreality in her mirth. "You must expect people to be amazed, Mostyn," she said, "if you treat them to such surprises. Of course I am glad to see you. Have you seen Blenavon yet?" "I have not been to the house," he answered. "I came straight here." "And your luggage?" she asked.