"Forgive me," she said, "either Mrs. Lambart has omitted to tell me, fearing to shock me, or in my heedlessness I have forgotten. Are you indeed master here, dear Laurence? How is that? Can it be that your brother Dudley is dead?" "Yes," he answered, "the old order has changed--and yet not changed perhaps so very much after all, for it appears the owners of Stoke Rivers, ancient and modern, are very much of one blood. But, in truth, Dudley is gone, and others have gone--God rest both him and them--and I reign in their stead." "Yes, God rest his soul," she said; and then repeated softly--"Poor Dudley! poor unhappy Dudley!" But Laurence, noting her pensive bearing, and hearing the gently regretful tones of her voice, was pricked pretty sharply by a point of jealousy from out the long past. "Is it a matter of so very much grief to you, Agnes," he asked, "to hear the news of your cousin Dudley's death?" Whereupon she turned on him eyes very reassuringly full of love; while--after a little space--her lips curved into a delicious and almost saucy smile. "Ah! I feared you had grown old and wise," she exclaimed. "I was foolish to vex myself. I see you are indubitably the same Laurence as ever." She laughed very sweetly, sweeping him a delicate curtsey. "The very same Laurence as ever," she repeated exultingly. Then she flitted away--as though, child-like, joy of heart must needs find relief in movement--down the long alley across the oblique shadows cast by the sentinel cypresses, until she reached the great, stone basin of the terminal fountain. Here she paused, gazing down at the smooth, slow movements of the sleepless fish. The borders on either side the walk were set out with bulbs and early flowering plants. As yet the majority of these showed but bud, or upstanding sheaths of leaf. The gilly-stocks only were fully in blossom. The clean, homely fragrance of them hung in the still air; but the moonlight had bleached their honest orange and russet faces, making them, like all else of the scene, but varying degrees of light and dark. Alone in this colourless world, frail though it was and ethereal, had the sweet figure of Agnes Rivers retained its actual hues. The brown of her hair, the warm pallor of her skin, the blue of her profound and now laughing eyes, the soft rose-red of her silken gown, defied the chill of the moonlight. And this, as Laurence moved towards her, deepened alike the charm and the mystery of her appearance. It captivated his imagination. It stimulated his ambition. It challenged the deep places of his love. The hopeless task must indeed be accomplished. The impossible must come to pass. Daring that which no other man had dared, he would earn a reward such as no other man had dreamed. But he must be cautious, and discreet, and very gentle. The diplomatist, for a long while to come, must hold the lover in check if the end was to be gained.