He was happily lost; the little train steamed out. He saw nothing of the beautiful country through which they passed--country, on this May morning, so beautiful in its rich luxuriant security, the fields bending and dipping to the tree-haunted streams, the hedges running in lines of blue and dark purple like ribbons to the sky, that, blue-flecked, caught in light and shadow a myriad pattern as a complement to its own sun-warmed clouds. Rich and English so utterly that it was almost scornful in its resentment of foreign interference. In spite of the clouds the air was now in its mid-day splendour, and the cows, in clusters of brown, dark and clay-red, sought the cool grey shadows of the hedges. The peace of centuries lay upon this land, and the sun with loving hands caressed its warm flanks as though here, at least, was some one of whom it might be sure, some one known from old time. The little station at Carpledon was merely a wooden shed. Woods running down the hill threatened to overwhelm it; at its very edge beyond the line, thick green fields slipped to the shining level waters of the Pol. Brandon walked up the hill through the wood, past the hedge and on through the Park to the Palace drive. The sight of that old, red, thick-set building with its square comfortable windows, its bell-tower, its dovecots, its graceful, stolid, happy lines, its high old doorway, its tiled roof rosy-red with age, respectability and comfort, its square solemn chimneys behind and between whose self-possession the broad branches of the oaks, older and wiser than the house itself, uplifted their clustered leaves with the protection of their conscious dignity-- this house thrilled all that was deepest and most superstitious in his soul. To this building he would bow, to this house surrender. Here was something that would command all his reverence, a worthy adjunct to the Cathedral that he loved; without undue pride he must acknowledge to himself that, had fate so willed it, he would himself have occupied this place with a worthy and fitting appropriateness. It seemed, indeed, as he pulled the iron bell and heard its clang deep within the house, that he understood what it needed so well that it must sigh with a dignified relief when it saw him approach. Appleford the butler, who opened the door, was an old friend of his--an aged, white-locked man, but dignity itself. "His lordship will be down in a moment," he said, showing him into the library. Some one else was there, his back to the door. He turned round; it was Ronder. When Brandon saw him he had again that sense that came now to him so frequently, that some plot was in process against him and gradually, step by step, hedging him in. That is a dangerous sense for any human being to acquire, but most especially for a man of Brandon's simplicity, almost naivete of character.