She, for her part, liked him immensely. She had seen very few men, and she did not think him ugly by any means, but most interesting looking. She could not divine that as she accepted his aid to spring into her saddle, the mere contact of her slim foot, resting birdlike, in his hand, sent a quiver of delight through the young man’s frame. His manner appeared so unemotional, his face so unmoved, that she never once suspected the passion for her which was taking hold of his entire mind and soul. Nor while she talked freely and gayly to him about the tenantry and the country round, could _he_ guess that before her eyes all the while there seemed to flit the remembrance of a bronzed and handsome face, the brows contracted in pain, the strong white teeth gnawing the lip under the drooping golden mustache, and the short brown curls disordered on a shapely head against the white pillow. So they rode and talked, under the pale green leaves that were bursting into a delicate lace-work on the branches overhead, happy together to all outward seeming, but at cross purposes in reality; he thinking that she listened and understood, she believing him merely friendly, and wishing she could change his sympathetic kindness for the cold disapprobation of that other one who had been wounded through her folly. From the darker shadows of the undergrowth a pair of malevolent eyes followed them. “What is she talking so free and smiling with that ugly swell for?” Stephen Lee asked himself. “Bad luck to the day when he and that hulking giant trespassed into these grounds. I wish I’d ’a’ killed him and this chap, too.” Down in his fierce heart, Stephen Lee cherished a secret passion for his beautiful young mistress, the existence of which she never once suspected. Unknown to her, his destiny was influenced by hers, and he was the means of communicating news concerning her at stated times to some birds of evil omen who were sometimes to be found at nightfall hovering within the confines of Cranstoun woods. Sir Philip would have been furious indeed could he have guessed that a member of the hated gypsy tribe had been for five years earning his living in his service; yet such was the case. The handsome, black-bearded young keeper, known as Stephen Lee, and one of the best men on the Cranstoun estates, was a true Romany, and hated his master with a hatred to the full as bitter as Sir Philip cherished against the entire gypsy tribe. Yet at this moment, as he watched Stella and Lord Carthew ride by laughing and talking gayly, Stephen found himself wishing Sir Philip home again. “The gray wolf would soon put a stop to this,” he said. “If it was the other chap, the lord, he might forgive it. I know right enough he means to try and marry her to some tip-top swell. But old Sarah will see her way to prevent that, I reckon.” He was muttering to himself, when a hard, rasping voice, speaking in low tones immediately behind him, made him start in surprise.