‘I think it is you who have been leading me astray,’ said Gerard, half grave, half gay. ‘I never felt so far from my work-a-day self in my life. You have a great deal to answer for, Miss Clare.’ Celia blushed at the charge, but did not reply to it. She turned and surveyed the ground over which they had travelled. ‘I can’t see Edward anywhere,’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you know, I have an idea that he left us about an hour ago,’ said Gerard. ‘What a ridiculous young man! And now he will be home ever so long before us, and will make capital out of his punctuality with my father.’ ‘Could you imagine him capable of such meanness?’ ‘He is a brother,’ answered Celia, ‘and in that capacity capable of anything. Come along, pray, Mr. Gerard. We must scamper home awfully fast.’ ‘Won’t you take my arm?’ asked Gerard. ‘Walk arm in arm over the moor! That would be too ridiculous,’ exclaimed Celia, tripping on lightly over hillock and hollow. ‘Do make haste, Mr. Gerard, or we shall be lost in the darkness.’ George Gerard thought it would be rather nice to be benighted on the moor with Celia, or at any rate to go astray for an hour or so and lengthen their ramble. Happily, however, the lights of the village, glimmering in the valley below, were a safe guide to their footsteps, and Celia knew the pathway that descended the moor as well as she knew her father’s garden. The only peril was the risk of getting into some boggy patch of the common at the bottom of the moor, and even here Celia’s knowledge availed to keep them out of mischief. They arrived at the Vicarage breathless, with glowing cheeks, just in time to make a hurried toilet for dinner.